


Nothing Good Ever Happens On A Tuesday

by megs_bee



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Artist Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Bucky Does Not Always Wear the Metal Arm, First Kiss, Fluff, Kid Fic, Light Angst, M/M, Memory Loss, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Swearing, War Veteran Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, coffee dates, current pining, mild anxiety, past pining, single dad Steve Rogers, surprise kid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-05 01:51:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17909732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megs_bee/pseuds/megs_bee
Summary: Recently discharged soldier James Barnes is back in Brooklyn, down an arm and missing five years of memories, but he’s got his PTSD mostly under control, a fancy metal prosthetic, and what’s starting to feel like it could be a half-decent life.  What he doesn’t have is any memory of the kid looking at James and asking him, “Are you my daddy?” -- or the gorgeous blond guy standing next to her.Steve Rogers lost his best friend Bucky five years ago, with no warning and no answers when he tried to find out what happened. So it was one hell of a surprise to walk into the grocery store one afternoon and come face to face with the man he thought was dead.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my entry for the 2018 Stucky AU Big Bang! This was my first real foray into writing fanfic and the Bang experience has been absolutely wonderful! Thanks to all the mods and the bang community, everyone has been wonderfully helpful and the Slack chat has been endlessly entertaining! 
> 
> I have wonderful art coming from the talented [mrs-dr-strange](https://mrs-dr-strange.tumblr.com/) (on Tumblr) / [DesolateHappiness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesolateHappiness/pseuds/SpaceTrash) (on Ao3) in the last chapter, which is awesome and I still can't believe there is art being made for something I wrote.
> 
> Thanks also to imhereforgaysuperheroes who kindly agreed to beta for me! All mistakes are always and forever my own.

Fuck. Tuesdays.

Everyone likes to say Mondays are the worst--hell, maybe James used to think the same, how would he know?--but now he firmly believes that Tuesdays are the absolute worst.  Tuesdays mean he has to get dressed and leave the house. Tuesdays mean he has to get groceries, and deal with people, and anxiety, and just...fuck Tuesdays.

And fuck this Tuesday in particular, because that asshole Stark insisted on keeping his arm for maintenance after yesterday’s assessment, and he  _ knows  _ Jeannine will give him The Look if he shows up to his Thursday session and admits that even though his schedule said “Tuesday: grocery store” he didn’t go and instead stayed home to sulk on the couch.  She knows he doesn’t like going out without the arm, but she also insists it’s not an excuse to avoid taking care of himself. And he knows she’s right, even though he pretends he doesn’t like to admit it.  He’s mostly got the PTSD under control these days, though, which is definitely thanks to Jeannine, so he does his best to keep up with her suggestions.

So, he’s here, awkwardly manhandling his shopping cart through the aisles with his remaining arm, trying to ignore the people he feels staring at where his sleeve is folded up and pinned just below his left shoulder, and pretty much just wanting to get this done and go home.

He’s hovering in the cereal aisle checking the shopping list on his phone against the stuff in his cart when he feels something tugging at the knee of his jeans.  He turns to look, and there’s a small child standing beside him, face upturned and eyes locked on his face. His mind starts in on a tactical assessment-- _ Caucasian female, 5-7 years old, brown hair, brown eyes, threat level zero _ \--but he shakes it away, because there’s no threat here, he’s at the grocery and this is a kid, dammit--

“Are you my daddy?”

Um.

What?

He tenses against the urge to flail around shouting  _ Nope! _ \--or  _ Shit! _ , or something else inappropriate--or hell, just run right out of the place, but goddammit he might be a brain-damaged, PTSD-riddled combat vet with his robot arm in the shop but James Barnes  _ does not _ go around yelling at children.

The girl is still standing there, and James realizes he’s just been staring and not speaking--which,  _ good job on not being weird to children, asshole _ \--but what the hell is he supposed to say?  He ain’t this kid’s dad; yeah, his memories are a mess and a lot of shit’s missing these days. And yeah, when they cleared him from medical after that last mission went to hell, his handlers and superiors seemed perfectly happy to have him lacking any memory of all the apparently-classified mission intel.  

He’d asked after his family, though, and they were all real clear that he didn’t have anyone waiting on him back home.  Hell, Nat once said the lack of personal ties was one of the reasons he was recruited as an agent in the first place. 

And when it came down to it, even though he knows that his old boss kept things from him after it was clear he lost most of his memories from the last few years, he’s gotta believe that they would have told him he had family.  Even if Fury and Hill tried to hide that fact, he knows Nat would’ve had his back and gotten the info to him one way or another. She’d told him they were partners for a long time, that they trusted each other, and he had just enough bits and pieces of memories to be pretty sure it was true.  So he trusted her on this.

Which means this kid is mistaken.  Not like he can explain all that to some kid, though, so what the hell is he supposed to say?

James comes back to the present when he feels the little girl’s hand tighten its hold on his jeans.  _ You’re still just staring at a little kid like a weirdo, Barnes.  Get it together, for fuck’s sake. Didn’t you used to be good at talking to people? _

He breathes in and out, slowly, twice, and manages a smile toward the little face tilted up at him.  It’s a smile that feels right, like a memory, and he can almost picture the way it softens his expression.  Good, no scaring children today.

“Sorry, sweetheart, but I’m not your Dad.”  He keeps his voice low and friendly. Tries to sound like a normal guy out shopping and not the hot mess he usually feels like.  He casts a quick glance around to see if he can spot whoever was with her, but the aisle is empty. Feeling the kid’s tiny fist tighten her hold on his jeans, he looks back down and  _ oh god-- _

Teary brown eyes and a trembling lower lip meet his gaze as a tiny voice whispers, “But you look like my picture,”--which James barely hears over over his own thoughts going  _ Oh shit you made her cry Barnes you asshole don’t cry kid c’mon. _

Shaking it off, he carefully crouches down until he’s level with the kid and tries another smile.  “Hey, you’re okay, sweetheart. Can you tell me your name?”

The kid gives a small sniffle. “Winnie.”

“Hi, Winnie,” James says, feeling a wash of relief when he gets a small smile in response.  “My name is James. Can you tell me who brought you to the store today? Where you last saw your mom?”

Winnie shakes her head, glancing around and frowning.  “I came with Papa but I don’t know where he is…” 

He has the passing thought that it’s odd she’s asking about a dad if she’s here with her Papa, but she’s getting that crying-face again so James does his best to catch her attention before she goes all teary.  “Okay, well why don’t I help you find him again, yeah?”

“Okay.”  Sniffling, she holds out her arms to him like...oh, like she wants James to pick her up.

Considering the logistics of pushing the half full cart and holding Winnie while he only has one arm, James decides--a bit ruefully--to abandon the cart for now and hope the stockboy doesn’t come by and put it all away before he gets back.

“Okay, then.”  James holds out his right arm, bent at the elbow.  “You good if I pick you up? You gotta hold on tight, though, and no wiggling around.”  He gives her an exaggerated squint, which relaxes into a grin when he gets a small nod and a wet smile in return.  WIth a little maneuvering, Winnie’s perched on his forearm and tucked up close where she could clutch at his shirt and shoulder.  She’s small and light, and it’s easy enough to get back to his feet.

Orienting himself, James heads up the aisle toward the checkout line which he figures is probably his best bet to get some help finding Winnie’s dad. Or, at least he’ll be visible for the guy who was probably frantic by now looking for her.  His thoughts skipping around, he tries to remember how to talk to kids, but apparently while he remembers how to smile like a not-hot-mess of a former soldier, apparently he’s got no idea what to say to a little girl who still looks upset and sniffly, goddammit, but who also seems content enough where she’s leaning against his shoulder so maybe it’s fine.

Stepping out from the end of the aisle, he sees that every cashier--of course, because fuck this Tuesday--has a line of people waiting.  James was tired, and already stressed, and  _ really _ not in the mood for a confrontation with some random shopper that was just gonna upset the kid  _ and upset James _ , so he starts wandering down the line trying to catch the eye of one of the cashiers, or identify the customer least likely to bitch him out for cutting in front of them.

Catching sight of someone just about done paying, James hurries over, trying to lean across the magazine stand and catch the cashier’s attention before the next customer stepped up.  “Excuse me, miss?” He goes to wave to catch her attention but  _ god fucking dammit Stark has his left arm and he’s still holding the kid, guess waving ain’t an option _ .  “Sorry, miss, but I need--”

He feels Winnie turn her head against his shoulder, then hears her voice pipe up--kinda loud, come on, kid--right next to his ear.  “Papa! Papa, I found Daddy!”

_ Thank God _ , James mentally sighs, and of course  _ now  _ the cashier turns around in his direction.  In lieu of waving her off, because he still can’t do that at the moment, he kind of tilts his head and blinks in a way that hopefully conveys,  _ I’m good now, thanks, _ and not some other weird thing because he doesn’t want to look like some kind of weirdo when he’s still holding a stranger’s kid.

“Winnie! Thank god!  Where did you go, you know you’re not supposed to wander off.” 

James turns at the sound of the deep voice behind him--and  _ god, that voice _ , it gives him an immediate shivery feeling inside that was definitely not appropriate to think about in public but which would be getting a very detailed mental replay later tonight--and juggles Winnie’s weight a bit as she leans over to reach for the guy walking up behind them, all his attention focused on the kid in James’ arm.

And  _ wow _ , the guy’s body definitely lives up to the promise of his voice--blond and blue-eyed and built like a brick house. James’ thoughts stutter a bit as he takes it all in, broad shoulders and flat abs under a too-tight navy blue t-shirt, before pulling his attention back to the moment as he realizes the guy is still talking.

“Winn, you know your Daddy is away,” the guy says in a soft voice as he gathers Winnie up and balances her against his hip.  James thinks the guy looks kind of sad underneath the parental worry, but what does he know? The kid, though, has an expression somewhere between teary and stubborn.

“But he looks like my picture.”  Winnie’s voice is quiet but insistent as she looks earnestly up at the blond.  

_ Oh, he looks really upset. _  James shifts slightly, a bit uncomfortable as the blond guy squeezed his eyes shut and hugged Winnie closer to his shoulder.  It feels like he’s intruding on a private moment, and it’s a lot more emotion than James really felt like dealing with today--hell, they aren’t even his emotions and it’s exhausting. 

The guy sighs as Winnie sniffled against his t-shirt.  “That’s still not a good reason to run off, Winn, but we’ll talk about it at home,” he says, and the kid nods without lifting her head.  With a deep exhale, the guy starts talking again, this time clearly directed at James. 

“Hey man, thanks.  And, um...sorry about all this.”  He raises those blue eyes to look at James, gratitude written on his expression.  “She thinks every guy with brown hair and dog tags is...her dad….” 

James starts to say, “Don’t worry about it,” but trails off as the guy’s expression fades from friendly to something...god, shattered is the only word he can think of that even comes close.  Something is clearly wrong, no one looks like that unless  _ something is fucking wrong _ , and James feels tension creep through his muscles and up his spine.  He reflexively checks the exits--finds the reassuring sight of the automatic double doors past the cash to his left--then shifting backward a half step then forward again, torn between leaving and trying to figure out how to help. 

The guy is all wide eyes and skin gone pale now, just staring at James without blinking, and fuck but James is starting to get worried.  “Hey, man, uh...you okay?”  _ Ugh, way to be fucking useless, Barnes _ .  The guy clearly isn’t okay.  What else to say, though?  _ Fuck fuck fuck _ . He fumbles for words and of course ends up falling back onto the utterly clichéd, “Kinda look like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”

And oh god,  _ oh shit _ , that just made things so much worse because the guy looks fucking  _ devastated, what the fuck Barnes you asshole _ .  He can see the guy struggling for words, those blue eyes glued to James’ face. His arms tighten around Winnie, who has clearly picked up on her papa’s upset because she’s clutching tight to the guy’s shoulder and shirt collar. 

James takes a deep breath, trying to settle himself and apologize for whatever he did to upset the guy, but doesn’t even manage, “Sorry--” before the guy makes a sad, confused noise and finally manages to speak.

“I...Bucky?”

James freezes even as adrenaline spikes, because he doesn’t recognize the word, no, except he still feels like he just took a punch to the solar plexus--breathless and unbalanced. It feels like an echo that he missed hearing the start of.  It’s all he can do to process his thoughts, to try to respond, and what comes out of his mouth is pure frantic reaction--

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

The guy makes another hurt little noise--James hates the sound, it seems so  _ wrong _ \--and just stands there looking fucking heartbroken or something, like he just lost his best friend.   _ What the fuck am I supposed to do now? _ Clearly the guy’s mistaken James for someone else, but faced with the intensity of this guy just...being emotional all over the place, how the hell is James supposed to respond?  

Except…  Something about this guy, about his voice, his eyes, the echo…  Like something almost familiar, almost remembered--

Oh.

_ Fuck’s sake, Barnes, for a smart guy you’re such a dumbass.  You have trauma-induced memory loss, so if someone seems familiar, maybe there’s a goddamn reason. _

James squints a little, studying the guy, trying to find anything in his memory that gives him information but there’s nothing useful.  That blond hair, the strong slant of the jawline, those shoulders that were going to feature prominently in his late-night thoughts-- _ dammit, stay on task, asshole _ \--but there’s still only the faintest brush of familiarity.

There’s a whole lot of brand-new  _ wanting _ , though, and if it wouldn’t just get awkward and weird as fuck, James could happily stand here and keep looking for a week.

But given that they’re in public, that ain’t an option, and James figures he better say something soon or they were going to hit that ‘awkward and weird as fuck’ point  _ real _ quick.  He doesn’t mean to be so blunt, but the words just sort of fall out of him.  “Look, you seem kinda familiar, but I don’t remember. Have we met before?”

At the sound of James’ voice the guy inhales sharply, like he’s coming out of a trance or something, but he still looks like he’s going to fucking fall apart any second--or god help them both, start crying--and James realizes that he probably just sounded really harsh and should maybe, kinda...explain.   _ Fuck. _

He steps forward a little, his hand raised in an apologetic wave, and tries to smile.  “Sorry, I didn’t mean…” Fuck, trying to explain this to people never got any easier. “I, uh...look, I’m not trying to be rude or anything.  It’s just that I was in an… accident last year, and lost a lot of memories from the last few years.” 

He feels his cheeks heat with embarrassment over having to bring up his issues--and maybe a little bit because of that _wanting_ \--as he continues with a quick glance toward Winnie and tries to keep it PG and not say _fucked each other_ because that’s sure as hell the gutter his mind is in right now. “So if we...uh, _dated_...or however we know each other, I guess that’s something I don’t...remember…”

Trailing off, James makes another apologetic gesture and tries to grin, but he’s pretty sure it looks about as awkward as he feels right now.   _ Nothing like airing a little of your hot-mess existence to a stranger. _

The blond’s eyes widen even further--James wouldn’t have thought it was possible, really--and breathes out a strained, “Shit.”  Then repeats himself, for good measure, and while he still looks devastated he’s also obviously solidly back in the moment and laser-focused on James.  

The guy’s voice is low and rough with emotion when he finally starts talking again, and his words cut James to the core. 

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes.  You’re my friend.”

_ What the fuck, what the fuck? _  James goes cold in shock--how does this guy know his name, how would anyone know that name,  _ James didn’t even know that name _ until they gave him his ID back right before his discharge--but before he has a chance to sort out the jumble of thoughts and say anything, he hears that low voice again.

“They told me you were dead.”


	2. Two

“Bucky?”

The name spills out of Steve without his really meaning to say it out loud. He couldn’t stop himself, and honestly isn’t sure he would’ve wanted to.  Instead he finds himself looking for the reaction that would let him know whether this is really happening. Let him know that he wasn’t dreaming, or hallucinating, or just seeing Bucky’s face in some stranger at the grocery store.

Four years. Four goddamn years of mourning and getting over that mourning and suddenly today there’s just this guy, standing here on a regular Tuesday shopping trip, holding a smiling Winnie who was definitely going to get a lecture on not running off--.

_ God _ , _ this guy looks so much like Bucky _ , there’s no way it can be anyone else despite the longer hair and new lines and shadows around the eyes. Steve can tell he’s staring, holding Winnie close and gazing at...Bucky.  It doesn’t make any sense, but somehow it’s  _ Bucky _ , alive and right in front of him again.

But Bucky is staring back looking a bit wild and definitely confused, eyes wide and darting to the side, and when he opens his mouth to speak what Steve hears is that so-familiar voice saying, “Who the hell is Bucky?”

It’s like a punch to the gut, seeing Bucky’s face and hearing his voice but not finding any recognition in either.  Mind racing with questions-- _ Where have you been? How are you here?-- _ Steve tries to respond, but only manages to wheeze out a breath as his voice fails him.  How is he even supposed to respond? Why doesn’t Bucky seem to know who Steve is?

Bucky’s expression slides from confused to something more considering.  “Look, you seem kinda familiar, but I don’t remember. Have we met before?”

Steve inhales sharply and feels his arms tighten around Winnie, seeking comfort from her small frame.  He isn’t sure what expression he’s making, but given that he feels the prick of tears it’s probably not a happy one.

_ I really must look bad _ , Steve thinks a little wildly, because now Bucky looks panicky again and is waving his hand in a gesture that was likely supposed to be calming but mostly just looked frantic.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean… I, uh...look, I’m not trying to be rude or anything,” Bucky said haltingly.  And god, Bucky’s expression was ernest and a bit uncomfortable; he was a good liar but Steve knew him too well, could always tell, and this isn’t Bucky’s lying face.  “It’s just that I was in an… accident last year, and lost a lot of memories from the last few years. So if we...uh,  _ dated _ ...or however we know each other, I guess that’s something I don’t...remember…”

Bucky smiles, or tries to, but it definitely looks more like an awkward grimace than anything else, and Steve can only focus on the fact that what Bucky just said wasn’t a lie or a game, it was the truth as he knows it--

“Shit,” Steve gasps out, then again, and again, “Shit, shit,  _ shit _ ,” because whatever was going on here, someone either lied or fucked up  _ hard _ and if what Bucky just said is true-- _ he knows it’s true, that’s not what Bucky looks like when he lies-- _ and their history is just  _ gone _ , where the hell is Steve supposed to even start?

_ Start at the beginning _ .  He hears it in Peggy’s voice, practical and no-nonsense.  So that’s what Steve does.

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes.  You’re my friend.” He manages to keep his voice firm, but can feel it slipping, trying to shake and waver, but he has to say the next part, even though it brings back all the old hurt.  “They told me you were dead.”

Bucky fell back a step, shock clear on his face. There was fear, too, underneath the shock.  “How do you know know that name?” The words came out on a breath, as though he hadn’t meant to say them out loud.

Winnie’s solemn voice broke the tension.  “Papa, you said a bad word.” She pats one small hand against his cheek.  “Are you mad?”

“I’m not mad, Winnie-bear,” Steve replies automatically, but he can’t quite pull his attention wholly away from Bucky.  Like he’s afraid Bucky will just vanish again. “I’m sorry for swearing.”

He still feels a little like he’s in shock, but at least Winnie’s interruption was enough to bring him back to the moment.  Giving his head a quick shake, he straightens his shoulders and meets Bucky’s eyes again. “I’m sorry to you too, Bucky.” He huffs out a breath that’s almost a laugh.  “This must sound...really confusing. Having some guy talking about...well…”

Bucky nods slowly, still looking tense.  “Yeah, this was not how I thought today was gonna go.”  He shifts uneasily. “Look, man, I don’t really know what to say right now, I gotta be honest.”

“That’s fine! Of course that’s fine!” Steve rushes to exclaim, then winces.  That was way too loud,  _ try and rein it in, Rogers. _  Yeah, he’s equally thrilled and bewildered to suddenly be faced with Bucky again,  _ alive, he’s alive _ , but the guy also looked like he was about to bolt.  “I’m guessing...god, Bucky, you must have so many questions.”

“Why did you think--?”  _ Why did you think I was dead? _  Bucky didn’t say the words out loud, and Steve could tell from his expression as he glanced at Winnie that he didn’t want to talk about it in front of a kid. 

Which was probably a good idea, all things considered.  Bad enough Steve blurted things out once already, and Bucky was bound to have so many questions.  This was going to be hard enough to talk about without having to try and watch their words around Winnie.

“Look, Bucky,” Steve says, ignoring the pang he feels seeing his friend flinch a bit at the nickname.  He adjusts his hold on Winnie in an obvious way, drawing Bucky’s attention for a moment. “Standing in the grocery store isn’t the place to talk about this.”

“No, I think I’m just...gonna go,” Bucky started to say, looking overwhelmed and tense, half turning like he’s about to walk away.  For the first time Steve gets a look at Bucky’s left side with the sleeve rolled and pinned where his left arm was missing,  _ oh god, Bucky… _

He must have said it out loud, because Bucky turned back with an expression both resigned and bitter.  His mouth tilts in something that isn’t quite a smile; it was too small, too angry for that. “Guess we both have some questions, huh, pal?” 

Steve pulls his gaze from Bucky’s left side back to his face.  “There’s a coffee place just up the street, outdoor seating. It should be quiet this time of the day, and I’ll get someone to come pick up Winnie. We can talk this through.”  Bucky hesitates, and Steve adds, “ _ Please, _ Bucky.  Any questions you have, if I have answers I’ll give them to you, I’ll explain anything you want to know, anything I can.  Just...come with me? Please?”

Finally, to Steve’s relief, Bucky nods.

Now he’s just needs to figure out what he’s going to say.

 

***

 

The walk to the coffee place is silent and awkward.  Steve finds himself both hurrying and trying to hang back behind Bucky just enough to keep him in sight, worried every minute that Bucky will change his mind and turn around and just disappear again.

Thankfully the place really is only a couple blocks away, and soon enough they’re sitting silent and awkward at a small table on the coffee shop’s patio.  Steve settles Winnie in the seat next to him and hands her the little carton of milk he bought inside. He thinks about how much he appreciates Winnie’s easy-going personality, and the fact that she’s always been an empathetic kid. He can tell she’s curious about Bucky, and about why Steve’s so unsettled, by the way she keeps looking between them, but she also seems content to wait before asking her questions.

When he can’t keep fiddling with Winnie any longer, Steve finally turns to where Bucky is seated across the table.  Bucky’s back to looking tense and uncomfortable, half facing away with his attention fixed on the bushes in the corner of the patio.

“I’m just going to call someone to come get Winnie,” Steve began.  “It’ll only be a few minutes, they’re just around the corner from here.”  Bucky just nods, so after a bit of hesitation Steve digs his phone from his pocket and pulls up Peggy’s name.  She’s usually off work on Tuesday afternoons, and sure enough she answers after only a couple rings.

“ _ Steve, darling! To what do I owe the pleasure? _ ”  Peggy’s voice is cheerful over the line.

“Hi, Peg, I need a favour.”  Steve tries to keep his voice even, not wanting to upset Bucky, but something must carry through his tone to Peggy.  “I need you to come pick up Winnie right now, and probably keep her for at least a couple hours. We’re at the coffee shop around the corner from your place.”

“ _ Of course, you know I will.  What’s wrong? _ ”

“It’s a little hard to explain,” Steve hedges.  Rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, he huffs out a breath.  “I just have...kind of an unexpected situation.”

“ _ Steve, are you and Winnie all right? _ ” Peggy demands. No nonsense and straight to the point, as always.

“Yes! Sorry, that sounded bad.”  God, this situation has really thrown him for a loop.  “Yes, Winnie and I are both fine, Peg, I promise. There’s just someone I have to talk to, and it’s not gonna be a conversation for little ears.”

“ _ Alright, darling, I’m on my way.  I’ll be there in a few minutes, and Winnie can stay as long as you need. _ ”  Steve hears the jingle of keys and the sound of the door closing from the other end of the call, and breathes a sigh of relief; that’s one thing taken care of.

“Thanks, Peg. See you soon.”  He hangs up the phone and ruffles Winnie’s hair a little to get her attention.  “Hey, sweetheart. Aunt Peggy’s going to come pick you up for some girls-day time while I talk to my friend.”

Winnie pouts at him.  “But Papa, I wanna stay here.”

“I know, Winnie-bear, but we’re going to talk about some boring adult stuff, and that’s no fun for you.  I’ll be over to Aunt Peggy’s in time for dinner, though.” 

“Okaaaay,” Winnie says with an exaggerated sigh, but she goes back to drinking her milk and doesn’t ask any more questions right now, and Steve can only be grateful.  At least after he’s had a proper conversation with Bucky he might actually have some answers for her.

“So, I’m an  _ unexpected situation _ , am I?” Bucky drawls from across the table, and Steve whips around, face going hot as he stammers to apologize.

“Uh, sor--” Steve starts, but then catches sight of Bucky’s smirk, and huffs out a laugh.  “Definitely unexpected. Certainly a situation. Unusual circumstances.” He can’t help but grin as Bucky laughs quietly in response.  Steve had been afraid for a second that Bucky would be offended, but instead--just for a moment--the shared humour made it feel like for the first time in five years everything was right-side up.

He thinks maybe Bucky feels the same sort of thing; he seems to lose some of the tension in his shoulders, and finally reaches out to pick up his coffee and start drinking it.

Before Steve can say anything else, he catches sight of Peggy hurrying around the corner.  Standing, he reaches down a hand for his daughter to grab and helps her slide down off the seat.  “Peggy’s here, Winnie-bear. Time to go.” 

Bucky’s watching them, and Steve says, “This won’t take long, just...don’t leave.  Please.”

He hesitates until Bucky nods.  “Okay.”

Winnie lets go of Steve’s hand to go around the table and stand in front of Bucky.  His expression softens and he smiles at her.

“Bye, James! Thank you for helping me at the store!”  She leans a bit against Bucky’s arm in a half hug. 

Bucky shifts enough to gently pat her shoulder.  “You’re welcome, Winnie,” he replies. “But no more running off on your Papa, yeah?”

“‘Kay,” she says, trotting back around the table to take Steve’s hand.  

Steve waves to Peggy to indicate they were coming around the fence to meet her.  “Be right back.”

He sees Peggy slow her steps on the sidewalk, and can tell the moment she gets close enough to get a good look at Bucky.  She hides her surprise well--Steve’s sure he can only tell because of how long he’s known her--but he knows that arch to her brow and that quirk to her lipstick-red smile. She’s going to grill him about this later.

When she gets close enough, she gives him a wide-eyed look.  “Steve, is that…?” He sees her glance down to Winnie and stop herself from saying anything more.  

Steve laughs, feeling like maybe it sounds a little wild at this point, and rubs his free hand roughly over his face.  “Yeah, Peg. It’s...yeah.”

“What in the world is going on, Steve?”

“That’s what I need to go talk to him and find out.”

She looks past Steve’s shoulder toward Bucky again.  “An unexpected situation, indeed.” 

All Steve can do at this point is nod; it’s not like he has any other answers right now.  Thankfully, Peggy apparently reads that in his expression--she always told him he wears half his thoughts all over his face--and she crouches down with open arms and a smile for Winnie.

“Hullo, Winnie my darling!  Your Papa said you’re to come visit with me and Auntie Angie for the afternoon?” Peggy asks as she wraps the little girl in a bear hug.

Winnie giggles as she returns the hug.  “Can Auntie Angie give me another dance lesson?”

“I’m sure she’ll be delighted,” Peggy replies as she stands, one hand holding Winnie’s.  “Steve, I’ll expect a full explanation when you come by later.”

Steve ruffles Winnie’s hair in farewell, nodding to Peggy.  “Hopefully a full explanation is what I’m about to get.” He turns his smile to Winnie.  “You girls have fun, and I’ll see you at dinner.”

“Bye, Papa!”

“See you later, Steve.”

He waves as Peggy and Winnie walk away, then takes a couple deep breaths and steels himself before returning to the table.  He probably has just as many questions for Bucky as Bucky is going to have for him, and damned if he knows where he even wants to start.

Except now that he’s sitting across from Bucky, all he can do is stare, at a loss for words.  For anyone he thought was dead to just...show up out of nowhere, it would be a shock, but for this to happen with Bucky…?  It’s almost unbelievable, and he keeps waiting to wake up out of a dream.

Bucky is starting to look a bit freaked out again, though, which clues Steve in to the fact that he’s just been staring and not talking for several minutes now.   _ Get it together, Rogers.  Quit staring and use your words. _

All Steve manages, however, is a disbelieving, “I can’t believe you’re really here.  That you’re alive.”

Bucky laughs a bit at that, wry smile tugging at his lips.  “That makes two of us.”

Steve makes a kind of acknowledging nod, but falls silent again while he sorts through the questions in his head, trying to figure out where he should start, what questions he should ask first.   _ Where have you been for five years?  What happened to your arm, to your memory? How long have you been back in Brooklyn? _

_ Why don’t you remember me? _

He knows that last one is kind of a dumb question; Bucky already said he lost his memory, most of it during the time they’d known each other.  But it still hurts a little bit to think that Bucky’s half of that shared history is gone--maybe forever.

Before he gets his thoughts together to voice any of those questions, however, Bucky straightens his shoulders and lifts his gaze to look straight at Steve.

“You know me,” Bucky says, voice low, and even though his expression is somewhere between determined and anxious, it’s not a question.  “You said...that we’re friends.”

Steve nods quickly, relieved; this is something he can definitely answer.  “Yeah. For about seven years...technically, I guess. But it’s been more than four since...I heard that you died.”  And god, that never gets any easier to say, even with the evidence to the contrary sitting right before him. He can’t help himself, then, can’t stop himself from asking, “You don’t remember me?”

Bucky shakes his head, features pinching a bit in apology.  “There was an accident. Obviously.” He shrugs his left shoulder at Steve, drawing his attention to the rolled up sleeve, and god that was going to be a hard thing to hear, assuming Bucky ever wanted to talk about it.  “And some...other stuff happened. I lost a lot of memory from the past five years or so, and other stuff is spotty even farther back.” He hesitates, making a frustrated noise as he squeezes his eyes shut and rubs his hand across his face, continuing low, “ _ Fuck _ , I’m not even sure what I can talk about.”

For a moment Steve’s confused, until he realizes that he’s as good as a stranger to Bucky right now, and Bucky doesn’t know what Steve already does and doesn’t know about his job.   _ Not like I know all that much, to be fair _ , but he figures he at least knows enough to offer a little reassurance.

He rubs his own hands over his face for a moment to gather his thoughts, but when he lowers them he feels calm enough to smile a bit.

“Okay.  Okay, maybe this’ll work better if I start.  Let me tell you what I already know, and hopefully that will make it easier to, uh, figure this out,” Steve says.  At Bucky’s nod, he pauses to organize his thoughts. “Okay, let me start with saying that I know you’re some kind of military Special Ops, and no, I don’t have much more detail than that because you always said it was pretty much all classified--”

“ _ Oh thank fuck! _ ” Bucky blurts out, slumping in his seat, and Steve can’t hold back a laugh.  It was enough to break the tension, though, and he’s pretty sure they both feel a little more comfortable.

“‘Thank fuck’ I know you’re Spec Ops, or ‘thank fuck’ I don’t know any details?” Steve teases.

Bucky laughs, rueful, and runs his hand over his hair, shoulders slouching down a little further as he relaxed.  “Either. Both. Makes it easier if I don’t gotta dance around the Spec Ops part, but even if I didn’t remember telling you classified shit, I’d be pretty fucked if anyone found out I did.  So, thank fuck for my discretion, too, I guess.”

“Don’t worry about that. You were always real careful about what you said regarding your work,” Steve replies.  “I’m as sure as I can be that I don’t know anything I shouldn’t.”

“Good,” Bucky sighs, motioning for Steve to continue.

“Okay, so. We met about seven years ago. We were both running in Prospect Park; it’s one of my regular routes, and I guess you were on leave.  I can be a...competitive little shit sometimes,” Steve smirks, laughing at Bucky’s amused snort. “So I came up behind you all set to lap you, except you must’ve heard me or seen me coming and apparently you, Bucky Barnes, are also a competitive little shit.  You started speeding up, so I did too, and in about two minutes we were probably a hazard on that trail we were racing each other so fast.” 

Steve can’t help the grin on his face, remembering that afternoon.  Both of them laughing, trying to outdo each other in speed, dodging trees and a few other surprised joggers, until they were both gasping for breath and leaning with hands on their knees.  He caught Bucky’s eye and could tell he was trying to hold back his own laughter, not very successfully.

“Well, I may not remember that, but I have to admit that it sounds like something I’d do,” Bucky says as he gave in to a soft laugh.

“By my experience, that’d be about right.”  Steve tilts his face up to the sun. “But yeah, once we’d caught our breath and settled down, you introduced yourself and we got to talking.  Hit it off real well, set things up to meet at Prospect and run together the rest of the days you were on leave. Kept in touch best you could whenever you were deployed, texting and Skype when it was available.  Wait, here...”

Steve pulls his phone out of his pocket, opening the folder where he kept his old photos of Bucky.  If anyone asked, he had them separated out so it was easy to show Winnie, but the truth...well, he didn’t even like to say it to himself.  “So you can see I’m not lying,” he says, passing the phone across the table with the screen open to the rows of image thumbnails. He watches Bucky’s face as he swipes slowly through the photos, sometimes smiling a bit, other times frowning or squinting a little--trying to place a memory, maybe.  

Steve didn’t need to see the photos himself; he knows the contents of that folder well enough.  Images of himself and Bucky in workout clothes, clearly on one of their runs through Prospect Park; a few from a trip to the beach and one of Bucky proudly holding up the bright blue plush dog he won at the shooting game booth at Coney Island; one of them bundled up in winter gear and covered in snow, holding coffee cups and laughing.  

There were also a few more artistic ones Steve had taken, capturing Bucky in unguarded moments; he hadn’t ever shared those pictures before, but faced with the reality of Bucky’s return he couldn’t find it in himself to feel embarrassed by what those photos might reveal.

Bucky lingered on one image for a bit longer than the others before closing out of the folder and slowly setting the phone back on the table.  He glances up at Steve and tries to smile, but he mostly just looks sad. “It looks like we had fun,” he says, and in a quiet voice Steve isn’t sure he was supposed to hear, “God, I look so young…”  

“Most of those were from 2012 and 2013.  You always came back to Brooklyn when you were on leave, saying it was still home even though your family--” Steve cut himself off, realizing he doesn’t know if Bucky remembers that he doesn’t have any family left.   _ Shit. _

He must have looked horrified, and Bucky tapped on the table to catch his attention.  “Steve, it’s okay. I know my family died when I was younger. It was in my file, so it was one of the things the medical team  _ could  _ actually tell me when we realized I couldn’t remember.”

Steve winces in sympathy.  “I’m still sorry, Bucky. That must’ve been such a shit way to learn about what happened to them.”

Bucky made a shrugging motion, trying to appear unaffected even as he looks down and away.  “Well, it wasn’t great.”

Quiet settles between them, until Steve nods and goes back to his story.  “Whenever you had leave, you ended up in Brooklyn, and we’d go back to hanging out...kind of a lot.  We were friends pretty much after that first race, but you turned into my best friend pretty quickly after that.  I didn’t know much about the Army or military in general back then, but you seemed to be on leave pretty regular. More than I thought soldiers got, for sure, and when I asked you about it, that’s when you said you were some kind of Special Ops task force, which meant you ended up with more leave time as long as you weren’t active on a mission or whatever.”  

Steve holds up both hands in a placating gesture.  “And that’s all you ever told me about it, until...well, I guess now I know it was right before you left on the mission where you got hurt. At the time, it was just a text message letting me know that you were about to be deployed on an undercover assignment, deep cover, and that you would probably be out of touch for a couple months or more.  Said you’d get in touch, a call or a text, if you had the chance...”

He trails off, remembering how much he worried, how hard it was waiting to hear from Bucky despite being told it would be weeks or months.  How his only response to that text was,  _ Okay, Buck. Be safe, _ when there were other words he should have said, words that he regretted keeping to himself…

“Six months in, I was really worried, Buck.”  He grimaced at the memory of being stonewalled at every turn as he tried every government agency and military office he could find, asking for information.  “Turns out, it’s really difficult to get information on a secret undercover military Specialist, especially when the only name I knew you by back then was ‘Bucky.’  I don’t know how many places I called, or sent emails to, trying to get any info about you, whether you were safe...but there was nothing. Hell, I probably ended up on some agency watchlist for how many people I pissed off.”

Bucky casts a tired look toward Steve.  “No, there wouldn’t be any records of me that anyone at the civilian level would have access to, not even my name.  I’m  _ very special _ Special Ops.”  He arches a meaningful brow, and doesn’t say anything else in that direction. Tilting his head toward his left shoulder, he adds, “Obviously not so much now.”

Unsure how to respond to that right at the moment, Steve just nods.  “Eventually I called in a favour from a friend of mine, and she had contacts God-knows-where that eventually got her your file, or a version of it.  Almost completely redacted, and with a note on the bottom that said...killed in action. No date, no details...just those three words.”

Steve feels his voice falter, but manages to say, “That was four years ago.”

He trails off, unsure what to say next.  He Doesn’t know how to bring up the next part of this whole situation.  How to bring up Winnie.

But Bucky has always been smart, and Steve can see the understanding spreading on Bucky’s face even before he begins to speak.

Bucky’s voice is low, hesitant, as though he knows the answer but is still afraid to ask the question.  “Your kid… She said...that I look like pictures of her dad.” And yeah, he already knows the answer, Steve can tell, but Bucky waits, eyes touching on Steve, sliding away before returning.

Steve nods.  “Yeah, she’s seen photos of you, and I’ve told her about you.”  He takes a breath, but there really isn’t any easy way to say it.  “Winnie’s your daughter, Buck.”

He sees anger and sadness flicker quickly across Bucky’s expression, and some other emotions he can’t identify, before Bucky covers his eyes with his hand.  There isn’t anything else Steve can say right now, not until Bucky has time to process.

Except just like how Steve knows what Bucky looks like when he’s lying and when he’s happy, he knows what Bucky looks like when he’s freaking out, and that’s definitely what happening now.  He sees Bucky’s shoulders heave once, twice, can hear his breathing speed up until he’s practically panting. Bucky’s fist clenches against his forehead before slamming down onto the tabletop, and suddenly he’s pushing back from the table, chair screeching against the patio stones.

“I need to go,” Bucky mutters, eyes wild but refusing to look at Steve.  His hand is shaking and he clenches his fist tight again as he stumbles a step away from the table.

Steve panics a little, jumping up from the table as well, reaching out toward Bucky.  “Wait, Bucky.”  _ Please don’t leave again, _ not so soon after finding each other again.

“I need to go,” Bucky gasps out between breaths.  “I’m sorry, I need to go.” The way Bucky backs away when Steve moves in his direction makes it pretty clear he won’t stay.

“Okay, Bucky, you don’t have to stay, just…”  Steve digs a pencil stub out of his back pocket, scribbling his cell number on a napkin that he holds out to Bucky.  “Please, call me… Call anytime, whenever you want to. I’ll explain the rest, I’ll answer any questions you have. I’ll tell you as much as you want to hear, just please...don’t disappear on me again.”  

Steve risks a step closer, hand holding the napkin outstretched. Bucky finally meets his eyes, hesitating, but in the end moves close enough to grab the paper out of Steve’s hand before practically running out of the cafe’s patio.

As badly as he wants to follow, Steve forces himself to stay in place. He watches until Bucky rounds the corner out of sight, but Bucky never once looked back.  All Steve could do was hope this wouldn’t be the last time they saw each other.


	3. Three

James is not ashamed to admit he panicked and bolted from the coffeeshop, except he’s totally ashamed because goddammit he hates it when he freaks out like that.  He barely remembers how he got home, or into his apartment, and only really came back to himself when he was sitting on the couch staring blankly at the television, right hand clenched around the edge of the cushion.  

By the time his heart stops pounding and his thoughts calm down to something other than a resounding chorus of  _ what the fuck _ , he starts to feel a bit like an idiot, but supposes that it’s really just par for the course these days.  Have a few good days, then get kicked in the teeth by a panic attack. 

But god, that had all been too much all at once.  He’d already been on edge today--his appointment with Stark leaving him without his arm, forcing himself out in public at the store--that running into someone apparently from his forgotten past…. Well, he figures that  _ maybe _ he could be forgiven for freaking out and running away.

Especially since one of those forgotten things was apparently a tiny child--

But he wasn’t thinking about that now, or he’d end up in another panic and once today was enough, thank you very much.

Not without effort, he unclenches his hand from the cushion and sees something white flutter to the floor.  _ Oh right. _

Steve’s number.

Hesitantly, he picks up the paper.   _ Steve Rogers 555-0107 call anytime, Buck. _  Strong, quick pen strokes and tidy spacing, so different from his own nearly illegible scrawl.  The longer he stared at the number, the more he feels unsure whether he’ll want to call. It was tempting to just avoid the whole situation, pretend it never happened.  Hell, it would be easy, and not the first time he’d had to make himself disappear. Steve doesn’t know anything about James’s life right now--not his address or habits. James can just never get in contact, find a new grocery store, move apartments...hell he could move to a whole new city…. 

_ Okay, Barnes, that’s getting a little out of hand. _  He shuts his eyes and thumps his head against the back of the couch. 

_ You don’t want to move, dumbass.  And anyway, Steve was right. Brooklyn is home. _  He still isn’t sure whether he can believe everything Steve said; after all, for all intents and purposes he just met the guy, and missing memories or no, James is pretty certain he’s not all that trusting when it comes to other people.  

But out of everything Steve said, and which James is trying to decide if he believes, enough of what Steve told him  _ feels _ right that James is leaning pretty hard toward trusting Steve is telling the truth.  It wasn’t just how he seemed to know how much James likes Brooklyn, and how James could be a competitive asshole, or how fucking happy they both looked in those photos.  In the end it came down to Steve not having anything to gain by lying, and his reaction to James’s missing arm.

For all that Steve was jacked as hell--and freak-out notwithstanding, James would be revisiting those thoughts later--the guy was clearly a civilian.  For one thing, no half-decent operative would bring a kid to some kind of meet-and-greet-intel-gathering situation; not necessarily for any moral reasons, but kids are just too damn unpredictable.  For another, if someone from an old mission or a new enemy was coming after him, they would have been briefed on the arm to know that it was gone, and to expect his metal replacement. Add that to there being no way to fake the kind of surprise and sadness James saw in Steve’s expression the first time he got a good look at his left side, and James is as sure as he can be that Steve is telling the truth as he knows it.

So.  Steve and James.  They hung out all the time, they emailed and Skyped.  They took stupid cell phone pictures. They were best friends.

Hell, those photos alone were almost enough to make him certain. They were selfies and candids, nearly impossible to fake and still have them look natural, along with a handful of more posed shots.  But even though it’s recognizably his face, seeing those pictures was simultaneously like looking at a stranger.

Steve had called James, “Bucky,” and that’s who was in these pictures.  _ Bucky _ and Steve jogging in the park, laughing in the winter snow.  Steve and Bucky goofing off at some amusement park. Bucky in the photos looked younger, less damaged.  Carefree, in every picture except two. In the first, Steve must have caught him in an unguarded moment.  Bucky wasn’t looking toward the camera, but off to the side; he didn’t look angry, exactly, but his eyes were hard.  It was the only picture that showed an expression anywhere close to what James ow saw in the mirror every day. In the other picture, Bucky stared straight into the camera in a way that suggested the photo happened before he could react.  The only word James could think of to describe Bucky’s expression was  _ longing _ ; what that longing was for, James is definitely  _ not _ in the right frame of mind to examine right now, so he just puts it aside.

But when he stops thinking about photos and phone numbers on napkins for friends he doesn’t remember, James realizes he’s  _ pissed _ .  Because if Shield and Hill and fucking Fury knew about this--knew about  _ Winnie- _ -and didn’t tell him,  _ if they had actively hidden it from him-- _

Fuck.  He really wished he had his metal arm right now because he wanted to punch something.

They had to have known, particularly Fury; the man is the goddamn spy of spies running a fucking off-the-books Special Ops team.  He has no idea how they might’ve found out, because  _ James _ hadn’t even known...as far as he knows, and according to Steve.  

Well, sort of.  Not like James managed to stick around long enough to ask any pertinent questions.  Steve said he could call, sure, but James...is not ready to deal with that.

Digging his phone out of his pocket, he thumbs the screen on and pulls up Nat’s number.  She’s probably the only one from Shield that he trusts enough to ask, and god and the devil knows she’s the best fucking operative in the place.  If there’s anything to know, she’ll know it. He also knows he can trust her to tell him the truth.

He hasn’t heard from her for more than three weeks, which means she’s probably on a mission. He does try calling, on the off chance he’ll get through, but only gets the beep of a voicemail.  Typing out a short message, he sends it to her secure number. 

_ I have a situation.  Call when able. _

No immediate response, which means she’s almost certainly away on an op.  He waits nearly a half hour, impatient, but his phone stays stubbornly quiet.  Finally, he forced himself to set the phone down and go make something to eat. All he can do is wait ‘til Nat finds time to call him back..

 

***

 

Of course, the stress of the day means nightmares all night, and James sleeps like shit and spends the whole of Wednesday on the couch, wallowing in his thoughts and alternately thinking about Steve and trying  _ very hard not to think about Steve _ . 

To be fair, he’s alternately brooding about, and trying not to think about, pretty much the whole situation, but Steve and his fucking blond and blue-eyed  _ everything _ definitely keeps sliding to the forefront. A much tinier, brown-eyed face with brunette curls keeps floating to the top of his thoughts, too. There’s only so much distraction binging Netflix can provide.

Wednesday night comes with fewer bad dreams--insomnia will do that--and by the time James wakes up on Thursday he’s still exhausted.  But Thursdays are therapy-with-Jeannine days, which means he has to drag himself out of bed and do the whole breakfast-shower-and-get-dressed routine.  For a few minutes, he pulls the blankets up over his face and debats calling to cancel, but James reminds himself he’s a goddamned determined bastard who already decided to do what he needs to for his own mental health, and he sure as shit knows this whole situation is something he needs to talk through before he really gets into a spiral. 

Plus Jeannine knows all James’ bullshit and would just talk him down and into agreeing to come to his appointment, anyway, so.  

Shower, clothes, breakfast, subway.   _ You can do this, Barnes. _

 

***

 

The subway is crowded and smells like piss, which is fucking fantastic, and some guy down the car is yelling about lemurs for some reason so that sets his nerves right on the fucking edge, because what even is New York sometimes. But overall, by the time James is sitting in the squishy chair ar Jeannine’s office he’s feeling more settled, the familiar routine of Thursday surprisingly soothing in spite of the last few days.

Hell, he isn’t even sure how much of this he wants to talk about, but he’ll have to say something since Jeannine can obviously tell he’s stressed.

“So, James.  How was your week?” Jeannine’s dark eyes crinkle a bit at the corner as she smiles, and James can’t help but smile back even as he groans a little laugh that he hopes doesn’t sound as wild as he feels.

“It was...a week,” he replies, rubbing his hand against his jaw-- _ shit, he forgot to shave _ \--and slouching a little deeper into the chair cushions.  He goes through the usual description of his weekend (uneventful) and his appointment with Stark, and spends an appropriate amount of time--James feels, at least--complaining about how much he hates being without the arm even though he knows the maintenance is necessary for such an advanced piece of technology, and acknowledging--with Jeannine’s prompting--that he’s more than capable even one-handed, and that it’s good for him to go without the prosthetic sometimes so that he can practice being more comfortable when dealing with people about it.

And James does know that, so he tells Jeannine about going for groceries on Tuesday, which of course leads right to the  _ situation he’s not thinking about _ , and that’s where his words stall out.

Jeannine lets the silence sit for a few minutes, to give James time to gather his thoughts.  He can’t seem to get started again, though, and she eventually speaks. “What are you thinking about, James?”

“That I didn’t even manage to get my groceries,” he responds, leaning forward and resting his elbow on his knee.  At Jeannine’s inquiring look, he gave a sort of nod as he continued. “I...ran into someone… A friend, I guess. From before.”

Even Jeannine looks surprised at that.  New York’s a big fucking city, so really what are the chances of running into someone from his own missing past? “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not all of it,” James says.  No point in not being honest here.  “Not even sure what to say about some of it. But yeah, ‘s why I brought it up.  It really kind of...threw me off the last couple days.”

Jeannine nodded with her usual patient smile.  “So tell me about this friend.”

“I don’t remember him,” James began, eyes on his hand where it rests on his knee. Flexes his fingers a few times.  “But I believe him when he says he used to know me.” He avoids bringing up Winnie, but describes Steve’s reaction to seeing him, the discussion at the coffee shop.  The photos that put him over the edge into believing the guy was telling the truth.

“I believe him when he says he knew me before, and that he truly believed I was dead,” James finishes.  “You know I’ve done deep cover ops. I’m an excellent judge of character and at reading people; you have to be to do what I do...well, what I did.  And that look on his face, the tone of voice...it’s not something you can fake.”

“This doesn’t sound like a bad thing, James,” Jeannine prompts.  “You’ve said before that you wish you remembered more of your missing past, had a better connection with who you were before that last mission. From what you shared, it sounds like you believe he’s genuine in his claims of a shared past and in his offer to answer your questions.”

“So why am I hesitating?” James huffs out a breath; Jeannine just gives him another nod.  “Well, he had some news that I wasn’t expecting. Really threw me for a loop, and I’m not sure yet what I think about it.”  He meets Jeannine’s level gaze. “Not quite ready to discuss that part yet, sorry. Want to gather more intel first. Think it through a little more.”

“That’s fine, James.  You don’t have to talk about it until you’re ready, as long as you’re giving it some serious thought.”

“And not just ignoring it, yeah, I know,” James says, smiling a little.  “I know the drill.”

“Do you have a way to get in touch with this friend again, if and when you decide you want to?” Jeannine asks.

“Yeah, I have a number.  He wrote it on a napkin when he saw I was about to run off,” James says.  And  _ hooray for that embarrassing moment. _  “I’m just not sure what the hell I would even say.  If I do call.”

Jeannine nods her head again in acknowledgement.  “It’s okay if you don’t know what to say, that’s understandable under the circumstances.  And from what you’ve said, it doesn’t sound like he’s the type to hold a little awkwardness against you.”

He nods back, because yeah, Steve really doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to get upset over some awkward conversation, or hell, even downright rudeness. Not when it would probably be clear that it stemmed from James’ anxiety and not an actual bad attitude.

“For what it’s worth, James,” she continues, “I believe it could be good for you to talk to your friend again.  It’s okay if you don’t know what to say, and it’s okay if you just want to listen to what he has to say.”

“I guess I don’t want to disappoint him,” James replies, getting to what he figures is the heart of his hesitation.  “I’m not the guy in those pictures anymore, that version of myself that he met and hung out with.”  _ I don’t smile like that anymore. _

“That’s understandable, so I’ll mention two other points to keep in mind.  One, you don’t owe him anything, even if he knew you before, even if he’s a nice guy, and it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person if you choose not to pursue this interaction. But, it can be beneficial to reconnect with someone who can share some memories of the years you’re missing.” Jeannine gives him a direct look.  “And two, you said he knew you before, which was five years ago. Five years can seem like no time at all, or a very long time. Five years is a lot of time for experiences, and for someone to change. Chances are he’s not quite the same guy who used to know the old you, either.”

 

***

 

The appointment wraps up pretty quickly after that, and James is simultaneously glad he didn’t skip out, and glad he’s done with therapy for the week.  It was good, he knows it was good to go, but even with Jeannine being as awesome as she is, talking about his feelings is goddamn exhausting every time.

But he does feel a bit more settled about everything, at least in the sense that he feels he can take his time to decide what to do about Steve.  Jeannine was right, after all; one of the things he’s said a bunch of times is that he feels disconnected from his past, and that the five missing years feel like a canyon impossible to cross keeping him away from the parts of his past that he  _ does _ remember.

He’s back at the grocery store while he churns through these thoughts, picking up the stuff he abandoned on Tuesday.  If he does decide to talk to Steve, and meet up with him, Jeannine suggested a neutral place where James feels comfortable and can leave easily if and when he decides he’s done.  Which he would have done anyway, since James knows his own issues and knows that if he felt confined it definitely wouldn’t help with the anxiety and would probably just make him feel like he needs to run.  Again. And fuck if he was going to embarrass himself twice with that shit.

_ Sounds an awful lot like you’re already planning to meet up with the guy, Barnes. _  Which was an admission he tries to tell himself isn’t decided on just yet, but it’s as though being told that it was up to him and he could choose whether to go forward with this or not was enough to just...take the pressure off.  Even though he reminds himself that he doesn’t have to decide now, that he can take his time to think it through...well. 

By the time he gets home and has his groceries put away, he’s sure...well, pretty sure…  Okay, so he’s not sure at all about getting in touch with Steve, but if he’s being honest with himself, James is  _ definitely sure _ that another week of just wondering and thinking about it damn well wasn’t going to make him any less anxious.  So, fuck it.

Of course, as soon as he’s settled on the couch, his phone and the napkin with Steve’s number on it sitting in front of him, he stalls out.  Thinking and doing are two different things, and he just sort of stares at his phone for awhile. Reads the napkin again and again, eyes tracing each letter and line.   _ Call anytime, Buck. _

He thinks about that canyon again. Maybe Steve can help him find a bridge.

He picks up his phone with hesitant fingers, then puts it down again for long enough to slide the napkin closer. Lifts his phone again, and slowly types the digits of Steve’s number into a text message.

_ To 555-0107: I have questions.  can we meet? _

He doesn’t even have time to put his phone back down before it’s buzzing in his hand with a response--and seriously, was the guy just sitting on his phone the last two days waiting for a message?  If James wasn’t so tense, he would’ve rolled his eyes.

_ From 555-0107: Yes, of course!  Anytime, anywhere. _

His thumb hovers over the screen, before tapping the little icon in the corner.   _ Add new contact.  _

_ Steve. _


	4. Four

It’s been two days since Steve found Bucky standing in the grocery store.  Two days, and Steve hasn’t stopped thinking about that moment for a single second. Bucky alive, and apparently mostly healthy.  

It’d been hard those first few months, once Steve started to suspect that something must have gone wrong the more time that passed without hearing from Bucky.  God, he’d been devastated when he finally learned that Bucky was listed as ‘Missing or Killed in Action.’ Nothing else, just that one terse note in a single smuggled file, delivered with a sympathetic frown by Peggy.  Hell, he doesn’t know how she even got the information; all she ever said was that she called in a favour from an old friend.

He glances over to where Winnie sat on the floor by the coffee table, colouring and quietly narrating the process to her stuffed bear.  Thank god for his little girl, for every minute he’s had with her the last four years. Taking Winnie into his life had given him purpose each day, and she gave him a little piece of Bucky back.  If it hadn’t been for Winnie, well, he isn’t sure how long it would have taken him to get himself together to deal with the loss.

His Ma used to say Steve loved too deep, but that she always believed that one day he’d find the person who would love him back just as much.  And in a way she’d been right, Steve always admitted, because Winnie loved him just as much as he loved her, his daughter in every way that matters.  But he’d always secretly wished, when he lay awake in the middle of the night, that the person to love him back had been Bucky.

Except now, Bucky’s here.  Alive. But all Steve can do is wait and see if Bucky contacts him.  He has Steve’s number, assuming he didn’t immediately throw it away, and God but he’d looked so confused, and definitely freaked out before he left.  Enough that Steve really isn’t sure whether Bucky would keep a number given to him by someone who was, for all intents and purposes, a stranger.

To be honest, Steve’s feeling about the same--confused and definitely upset--and it’s not just about Bucky’s missing memories. There’s also the arm…

Bucky seemed to be doing okay, looked healthy otherwise, but  _ he lost an arm _ .  There’s no way, whatever Bucky went through, that what happened isn’t going to be a terrible thing to hear. 

Hell, Steve wouldn’t blame Bucky one bit if he just decided to ignore the whole situation. It’s not as though Steve knows anything about Bucky’s life now; no way to find him, or contact him.  Not unless Bucky reaches out first. Steve can’t help but feel hopeful, though, because that’s not the man he knew. Not a quitter, not a coward, and always willing to tackle things head on. 

Being almost sure that Bucky would call didn’t make the waiting any less shitty, though. So Steve tries to keep himself distracted with work and Winnie, but thinks about Bucky all the time, anyway.

 

***

 

When his phone buzzes late Thursday afternoon Steve practically pounces on it--which he’s been doing every time his phone makes a noise for the past two days, if he’s being honest. He nearly drops his drawing tablet for his trouble, managing to shove it onto the coffee table with one hand while he picks up his phone with the other.

_ Unknown number _ .  But he knows it’s Bucky, it has to be.  He swipes to open the message. 

_ 555-0107: I have questions.  can we meet? _

All Steve can think is  _ thank god _ on a wave of relief that Bucky reached out.  He responds immediately, typing out the message and sending it before saving the number under Bucky’s name.

_ Steve: Yes, of course!  Anytime, anywhere. _

A minute passes, then five, and Steve starts worrying that he responded too fast, came on too strong.  It might not take much to spook Bucky right now, or overwhelm him, but Steve’s so eager to see Bucky again it’s hard to hold himself back.

After ten minutes, Steve forces himself to set his phone aside.  Maybe Bucky was busy, or just changed his mind about the whole thing--

The sound of his text alert has him scrambling to grab his phone back up, and he casts a reassuring smile to Winnie when she looks up from her drawings in concern.

_ Bucky: ok. _

When another five minutes pass without a follow up message, Steve sighs and slumps down in his seat, and reminds himself to be patient.  He’s eager to see Bucky again, it’s true, but he’s also gotta remember this is a whole different thing for Bucky. The last thing he wants to do is scare Bucky away before they have a chance to sort this out.

He manages to put his phone down and get back to work, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t checking it every minute.  It takes nearly all his effort just to give Bucky space and not bombard him with texts, but eventually he manages to lose himself in the commission he’s working on.  

It’s an hour later by the time his phone buzzes again, and he manages not to knock things down this time but still picks it up pretty damn fast.

_ Bucky: friday at prospect park. afternoon ok with you _

_ Steve: Early afternoon is good, Winnie will still be at school _

Even as he makes the request, Steve knows that Peggy or Angie would be more than happy to pick Winnie up at school if necessary, so that’s already covered.  It would be easier to head out without having to answer a lot of questions to Winnie if he’s able to go while she’s out of the apartment, though. For a moment he wonders if that makes him a bad parent, but he doesn’t have any answers for her right now, and would much rather figure out where Bucky stands on the whole situation before he sits Winnie down to explain to her.

He hopes Bucky is interested in being in Winnie’s life, because she deserves to know her biological father, and Bucky’s such a great guy.  In his heart, though, he can’t deny that part of this is the selfish desire to keep Bucky in his own life and maybe, just maybe, find out whether...well.

_ Bucky: ok, at the stranahan statue just inside the park off flatbush _

_ Steve: sounds good, Buck _

_ Steve: looking forward to seeing you again _

Slumping down in his chair, Steve covers his eyes with one hand for a moment while regretting his apparent inability to filter himself for more than five minutes.  Despite telling himself not to push, he does it anyway, goddammit.

He sends a quick text to Peggy confirming whether herself or Angie will be free on Friday, and able to pick up Winnie for another “girls night.” Seeing no other messages from Bucky, Steve puts his phone down and gets up to start making lunch for himself and Winnie. 

Nothing to do now but wait.

 

***

 

By Friday afternoon Steve feels like he’s about to vibrate right out of his skin with anticipation.  He’s at the park early--embarrassingly early, if he’s honest with himself--and hovering probably awkwardly near the Stranahan Statue with a tray of coffee and pastries in hand.  It’s a nice day, sunny but not too warm, and the park is busy without being packed. Bucky had seemed so jumpy at the grocery store, but hopefully things would be better here since it was out in the open and they could stay away from any crowds if they wanted. 

A glance at his phone shows no texts from Bucky--he hasn’t gotten any other messages after their exchange setting up the meeting--and the clock shows he still has another twenty minutes to go before the time they agreed on. An older gentleman gets up and walks away from a bench across the path and Steve moves to sit down, setting the coffee tray at his side. He watches the passing foot traffic with an eye out for Bucky, and tries to get his thoughts sorted as to what he wants to say, and how to explain his side of this improbable situation.  How to try and fill in the gaps that Bucky seems to have forgotten, and give him the stories he doesn’t know.

A pair of joggers run past, and Steve sighs.  Bucky had suggested they meet here, and Steve isn’t sure why.  Bucky said he didn’t remember their friendship, yet he managed to pick a meeting place right beside the same path where they had met the first time.  Hell, Steve could see the spot just around the curve where they’d both ended that first ridiculous competitive race and introduced themselves while laughing

He alternately wants to ask why Bucky suggested this meeting place, and doesn’t want to ask and find out the truth is it’s just because the Stranahan Statue is such a well-known landmark that it was the first thing to come to mind.  

When he turns back he sees Bucky coming up the path, looking hesitant and unsure, the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up and his hand stuffed in his pocket.  It makes Steve’s heart ache a little, because it’s so unlike the Bucky he remembers. Although most of the time he spent with Bucky before was just the two of them, or occasionally a small group of other people, what Steve remembers is how outgoing and energetic Bucky always was.  He was the kind of guy who just drew people into his orbit, and made them smile or laugh. Seeing Bucky now, shoulders tucked in and head down, trying to avoid looking at the people he passed and actively shying away when someone drew too close to his personal space…

Bucky lifts his head and catches Steve’s eyes. A small smile slid across his face, and Steve couldn’t help but grin back and lift his hand in a wave.  Bucky still looked hesitant as he approached, and all Steve wants to do is reassure him that he’ll always be welcome and there’s nothing Bucky could do that would make Steve want him out of his life.

Steve stands up as Bucky slows to a stop beside the bench.  “Hey, Buck.”

“Hey,” Bucky replies, voice quiet.  

When he didn’t say anything else, Steve gives a little nod and rubs at the back of his neck.  “So, uh… I thought maybe I oughta say sorry? For, um, last time?” He glances at Bucky and pauses, but continues in the face of Bucky’s surprised silence.  “I’m too blunt sometimes, and I get that dumping all that on you at once was too much. I didn’t mean to upset you, and I’m real glad you said you wanted to meet up again.”  Letting out a breath, he adds, “So, I’m sorry, and...thanks.”

Bucky holds up his hand, closing his eyes briefly with a little groan.  “No, Steve, fuck. I’m sorry, too. Yeah, it was overwhelming, and I sure as shit wasn’t expecting that to happen when I went to get groceries. But I didn’t handle any of it well, and that’s on me.”  He turns away from Steve a little, just enough that his hair--loose today--partly hides his expression from Steve’s view. “I’m still dealing with some shit, in case you couldn’t guess. I’ve got it under control most days, I put a lot of work into that, but yeah. That was too much all at once and I fucking panicked.”

Steve can’t help a small chuckle at that.  “You sure did, Buck. Ran outta there quick as a rabbit.”

“Shut up,” Bucky huffs, but Steve can hear the smile in his voice.  Bucky takes a deep breath, straightening his shoulders as he turned back to Steve and lifted his chin.  “But I’m ready to listen now, and I have...a lot of questions.”

“You and me both,” Steve replies.  He realizes they’re just standing there beside a perfectly good bench and gestures for Bucky to sit down before taking his own seat at the other end.  He holds up the tray of coffee and passes Bucky’s over, made the way he always liked it: a caramel mocha with more sugar than actual coffee. 

Bucky makes a small noise as he sipped from his cup.  When Steve looks over, he sees that Bucky’s giving him a definite  _ look _ \--somewhere between surprised and suspicious.  “This is good,” Bucky says quietly. “But I gotta ask, why’d you get me this kind of coffee?”

“You always ordered a caramel mocha when we got coffee after a run, said it was your favourite and you missed it when you were on mission somewhere you couldn’t get one,” Steve replies.  Bucky’s expression looks pained, though, and Steve wonders about it for a moment until he realizes why. “Oh shit, you didn’t remember your favourite coffee. I swear, I was trying to be, I dunno, considerate or something.  Not creepy. Definitely didn’t intend to be creepy and weird.”

Steve slumps down against the back of the bench, feeling pretty damn awkward.  He hadn’t even thought about it, just got the coffee and pastries he knew Bucky liked.  It hadn’t occurred to him that Bucky himself might not remember such simple things.  _ Way to go, Rogers.  Nothing beats looking like some kind of weird stalker in front of the guy you’re trying not to scare away. _

Before he can beat himself up any further, Bucky speaks up.  “It’s fine, Steve. Yeah, sure, it’s a little bit unsettling that you know my favourites when I don’t remember ever having coffee with you, but it’s okay.  It’s...nice. Actually makes this all seem a little more real.”

They lapse into quiet again, drinking their coffee.  Steve can see that despite Bucky’s apparent relaxation, he’s constantly scanning the area, part of his attention always on their surroundings.  Steve doesn’t think anyone else would notice, but he knows Bucky well enough to see the alertness.

Steve flounders a bit, trying to figure out how to start the real conversation--and to recover from the awkwardness of his coffee choices. He kind of just wants to sit here and drink said coffee beside Bucky, but that’s not going to get them anywhere. 

Well, since Steve can’t figure out what to start with, maybe Bucky has something in particular he’s been wanting to ask.  “Anything you want to know first?”

Bucky’s expression is one Steve can’t quite read, and Steve isn’t sure what question he expected to hear first, but it wasn’t, “Why do you call me Bucky?”

“You  _ would _ lead with the question I don’t really have a good answer for,” Steve shakes his head.  “It’s just how you first introduced yourself. ‘ _ Thanks for the race, punk. Bucky,’ _ ” Steve mimics Bucky’s drawl as best he can and mimes a handshake.  “You did tell me once that it was a family nickname from when you were a kid, and it kind of stuck around. You mostly used it with civilians, said it helped keep things separate from your work.”

Bucky nods.  “Yeah, that sounds about right.  About the civilian name thing, I mean.”

“It’s the only name I ever knew you by, before.”  And it had hurt a bit, when Steve first realized he probably didn’t know Bucky’s real name.  “I only found out your whole name, James Buchanan Barnes, when I finally got to see that copy of your file.”

A sad look crossed Bucky’s face.  “I don’t remember any of that. Don’t remember being called Bucky.  But fuck, I didn’t even know my own name for a long time, ‘til I healed up enough that the doctors were able to tell me.  I’ve just been James since I...came back to myself.”

“Shit, sorry Buck.  I can stop calling you that if it makes you uncomfortable or something,” Steve exclaims, running his hand through his hair.  “I’m basically a stranger right now, so I get it. I can try to not call you Bucky. If that’s what you want, uh...James.” 

Bucky--because even if Steve’s going to have to call him  _ James _ out loud, he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop thinking of him as  _ Bucky _ in the privacy of his own thoughts--laughs.  “Don’t hurt yourself, Rogers. And it’s okay, really.  I kinda like it.”

Unable to hide his smile, Steve tries to hide how happy that makes him by lifting his coffee to his mouth.  “Okay.”

“And for the record? You were wrong,” Bucky continues.  “That was a good answer.”

They smile at each other, probably looking like a couple of idiots, Steve thinks.  But he’s too pleased to care much for what anyone else might be thinking. 

After a few moments, Bucky sighs and his expression shifts to serious again.  “I’m gonna need to know how you got that file, but not right this second.” He takes a deep breath and meets Steve’s eyes.  “Tell me how I have a daughter I don’t remember.”

In the middle of taking a sip of coffee, Steve startles and tries to talk but just coughs as he swallows wrong.   _ Shit, he hadn’t even considered that Bucky would think he forgot about having a child. _  Catching his breath, Steve scrambles to reassure him.  “God, Bucky, no, it’s not that you forgot! You didn’t know about her at all, I swear.”  Except as soon as he says that, he realizes it probably doesn’t make things better. Bucky does look relieved, though, so Steve just waits to give him a chance to respond.

“Okay, that’s...not great,” Bucky says.  “But if I didn’t know before leaving on that mission, then my boss probably didn’t know, which means that they weren’t lying to me or keeping her a secret or something when they told me I didn’t have any family left, so yeah.  Not great, but it’s not that they knew I still had family but deliberately withheld it from me.”

Steve winces.  “Yeah, I guess that would be worse.”

Bucky nods.  “So what happened?”

“A bit more than five years back,” Steve says slowly, sorting his thoughts as he speaks.  “On your last leave, you were in the city for about three weeks. We’d been out a few times with a girl you’d met at a bar or something, Delores.  You called her Dot.” He gives Bucky a small smile, looking for any sign of recognition at the name, and though he’d never admit it, the fact that the name doesn’t seem to spark some sort of memory makes Steve feel selfishly glad.

When Bucky doesn’t say anything, Steve continues.  “You’d only been out with her a couple times, and a few evenings we went out with her and a bunch of her friends.  I never got to know any of them, really.” He sighs, a little embarrassed to admit it, but, “I only really went out because you included me in the invite, and I wanted to spend time with you while you were Stateside.”

He pauses, feeling a bit like he may have given too much away with that statement, but Bucky doesn’t seem inclined to pursue that right now, so Steve breathes a mental sigh of relief.  Now that he’s started the story, the words come a bit easier and he settles back against the bench, both hands wrapped around his coffee, and does his best not to stare at Bucky while he speaks.

 

***

 

He tells Bucky his side of the last five years.

After Bucky had left on that last mission, unexpectedly and with only the one text, Steve hadn’t seen or heard from Dot or any of her friends again; he didn’t think any of them even knew his name, but probably just thought of him as “Bucky’s friend.”  Weeks went by, then months, long past the time Steve expected Bucky’s mission to last, past the time where he usually would have gotten at least one message from Bucky.

But there’d been nothing. 

Then it was months of Steve worrying, and months spent visiting every government office and calling every number he could find trying to get any tidbit of information--was Bucky alive, or missing?  Was he injured, or just out of touch? He refused to even consider the worst case scenario, that Bucky had died somewhere halfway around the world and Steve would never know.

“I pissed off a lot of people,” Steve says with a sigh, tilting his head back to look at the tree branches waving above them.  “Even got a letter once threatening some kind of legal action if I didn’t stop showing up at one of the Army recruitment offices and harassing the staff.  I sent them some of those fancy snack basket things, later.” He catches Bucky’s incredulous look out of the corner of his eye, and exclaims, “What? I felt bad about that one, afterwards!  It wasn’t the receptionists’ fault they couldn’t give me any information.”

Bucky’s still looking at home like he thinks Steve is some kind of alien.  “So you sent them a muffin basket?”

“Well I sure wasn’t going to show up to apologize in person at that point.  I got a friend of mine to drop it off along with an apology note. I was...pretty rude.  Maybe.” Steve feels an embarrassed flush spread across his face. It definitely hadn’t been one of his finer moments.

Bucky just shakes his head slowly, disbelieving, but doesn’t say anything else. 

“Anyway, that kind of set me straight a little, enough that I stopped trying to get information in person and looked for some other way,” Steve sighs.  “In the end it was Peggy. She’s technically retired now, but she was MI6 at one point. I don’t know the details, but she called in some favours from an old contact to get the copy of your file I mentioned before. Redacted to hell and back, but with ‘killed in action’ stamped across the front.  I was...not okay, for a while.” 

And that’s downplaying his state of mind significantly, but Steve doesn’t really want to dredge through all those feelings again; the hurt of losing a friend, that first week where he didn’t leave the apartment and hardly slept.  How anything artistic he attempted for ages afterwards was clearly coloured by his feelings for Bucky, and by his mourning.

So he skips past that to a few months after reading that file--now nearly a whole year after the last time he’d seen Bucky in person--when he got a message through his website from Dot, asking whether he was the same Steve she’d met through Bucky last year.  She was looking for Bucky, wanted to talk to him, but the phone number she had wasn’t working.

It was hard, so hard, being reminded of Bucky again--not like that didn’t happen every day, anyway--but Steve emailed her back.  Said that he might be able to help, but it would be better to meet in person. He knew Bucky and Dot hadn’t been seriously involved, not really, but Steve still didn’t feel right giving her the news in an email.

The day they arranged to meet up, Steve was at the coffee shop nearly an hour early, nerves so tight he couldn’t stand just waiting around his apartment any longer.  He’d been staring into his mug the whole time--decaf, since he was keyed up enough already. He had no idea what Dot wanted Bucky for, she hadn’t said, but whatever it was she wouldn’t get it, and for a brief moment Steve  _ hated  _ the fact that he was the one who had to put the reality of Bucky being gone into words for someone else, someone who’d barely known him.

“Steve Rogers?”

He whipped his head up to see a woman had stopped at his table while he was lost in thought, and he almost didn’t recognize her as the cheerful, energetic redhead who’d spent those evenings at the bar cuddled up to Bucky’s arm.  She looked...tired, and a little pale, the way people get when they aren’t sleeping enough. It’s a look Steve knows, one that’s he’s been seeing in his own mirror.

“Dot.  Uh, hi.”  Steve gestured for her to sit, then motioned toward the counter.  “Can I get you anything?”

“No, thanks,” Dot said, and Steve could hear the exhaustion in her voice.  “I’ll cut to the chase here, I’m looking for Bucky because a couple months after he got redeployed I found out I was pregnant.”

Stunned, Steve could only manage a strained, “Oh...fuck.”

“Exactly,” Dot replied with a small twist of her lips.  “I only had a cell number so tried to call and left a couple messages, but I didn’t expect to hear back from him right away because I knew he was back halfway around the world wherever he was stationed.  And don’t get me wrong, I know I was just a temporary thing while he was in the States. It was just casual for me, too. But I was pretty upset when I called, so I figured at some point he’d hear them and get in touch. He’s a good guy, y’know?”

Steve swallowed hard.  “Yeah, I know.”

“It’s been a year, though, and I don’t know what else to do.  Then I remembered you, the only other friend of his who ever came out with us.  I was pretty sure you were an artist of some kind, did some digging and found your website.  Sent you a message, and here we are. You’re his friend, so I figured you probably had another way to get hold of him.”  She wasn’t quite looking at him as she spoke, staring off toward the counter and running her fingers along the strap of her purse.

God, this was so much worse than he expected, and all Steve could pull from the jumble of his thoughts was, “The baby?”   _ Bucky’s baby… _

Dot ran her hands through her hair, slumping down a little in her seat.  “I had the baby a couple months ago. A girl. Having an abortion wasn’t something I needed or wanted to do, and I thought...I don’t know, that I might feel differently after she was born.  But I don’t want a kid. I just want to get hold of Bucky so I can sign over my parental rights, or whatever it’s called, and get on with my life. Hell, I don’t know whether he wants a kid or not, either, but he deserves to know about her, and I didn’t want to give her up for adoption without giving him the option first.”

Steve closed his eyes for a long moment, forcing himself to take measured breaths while he gave Dot time to add anything else.  When she stayed quiet, Steve knew he couldn’t leave it unspoken any longer.

“I hadn’t heard from him, either, not since he left.  When I finally found someone who could give me some info, I found out that he died. Killed in action.”  He can’t force any other words out of his tight throat. 

“Oh god, Steve.  I’m sorry,” Dot whispered.  She made a motion like she might reach out, but pulled her hand back.  Which was fine with Steve, they don’t know each other well enough for that.

He kept quiet, giving Dot time to think.  Steve tried to think about nothing; god knows he’d spent more than enough time thinking about Bucky--about the loss of Bucky--that he sure didn’t need any more of it.

“Does he have any family?” she eventually asked, sounding unhappy.  “Parents, or siblings? She’s their grandchild, she should...be with family.”

_ Oh, goddamn _ .  “No, no family.  They died in a car accident years ago.”  Steve squeezed his hands around his coffee mug.  Bucky had shared that story a couple years previously, when they’d gotten drunk on New Year’s and both had been feeling the loneliness of missing family.  “He came to Brooklyn when he was on leave because it was home, but he doesn’t have any family left here.”  _ Just me… _

“Ah, shit,” Dot muttered, slumping further in her seat.  Frustration tightened her expression and coloured her voice.  “All right, well… Guess that’s that. No one can say I didn’t try.”

Steve didn’t really know what to say to that, settling on, “What’re you going to do?”

“Look into adoption, I guess.  If there isn’t any family…” Dot sighed.  Her voice was small and tight as she met Steve’s eyes.  “I’m not a bad person, Steve. I just...I don’t want a kid.”

_ It isn’t just a kid, just any kid, it’s Bucky’s kid, _ Steve wanted to shout, even though he knew he couldn’t do that.  It wasn’t Dot’s fault any more than it was Bucky’s or the baby’s. Sometimes things just happened, and everyone had to figure out how to deal.  Sometimes you lost your family to an accident, sometimes you got pregnant, and sometimes you think you could maybe have a future with a guy only to lose him before you had a chance to do anything.


	5. Five

Pausing in his recitation, Steve cast a self-deprecating look towards Bucky.  

“Now, while I definitely wouldn’t change anything about the last few years in regards to Winnie, I will admit that I had a bit of a wild moment and didn’t really think things all the way through.  But when we were sitting there, and Dot was talking about adopting her baby out because you didn’t have any family left to take her in, I just… If she was going to do that, then I was the closest thing to family you had, and the thought of losing that last part of you…”  Steve sighs. “Maybe it was presumptuous to think that I held such an important place in your life, or that you didn’t have any family anywhere else.” 

What he doesn’t say out loud, but which echoes inside his thoughts, is that no matter how naive it seemed, there was always a tiny part of him that didn’t want to accept that Bucky was gone forever, and hoped that someday, somehow, Bucky would come back; and if that happened, Steve had wanted Bucky’s daughter to be there.  The one time he’d mentioned it to Peggy, she’d just looked sad, but was kind enough not to try and argue.

“So, that’s basically what I said to Dot,” Steve says aloud.  “Told her that if she was serious about not keeping the baby, then I was the closest thing to family and wanted to take on Winnie myself.”

“Jesus, Steve, what the fuck?” Bucky rubs his hand across his face with a groan.  For a moment Steve’s worried that Bucky is angry, but the look on his face when he drops his hand again was just disbelieving. “Who does that?”

Steve laughs.  “That’s about how everyone else reacted, too.”  He thinks he hears Bucky mutter  _ how are you even real? _ into his coffee cup, but when it doesn’t look like Bucky’s going to continue, Steve lets it slide.

“Anyway, Dot was definitely skeptical, which is fair.  She didn’t really know me, and I’m pretty sure she thought I was nuts.  But I always wanted kids, and since I’m bi with a definite lean towards guys, there was always a good chance I’d end up adopting with my partner, so to me it really wasn’t that much of a stretch.  I mean, aside from the sudden-single-dad thing, which wasn’t the original plan.” He smiles warmly at Bucky. “But I wouldn’t change a thing.” 

“So how’d you convince her you were serious?”

Steve makes a face, feeling the combined press of embarrassment and guilt that usually cropped up when he thinks about that time.  “Okay, so I’m not entirely proud of everything I did back then… I told myself it’s what you would have wanted, but it’s not like I really knew; we never discussed stuff like kids or the future.”

“Steve, it’s okay,” Bucky says, and Steve realizes he must look really upset if Bucky’s giving him reassurances.  “I’m not gonna think you kidnapped her or something, so whatever went down, I’m not gonna be mad at you.”

“‘Kay.”  Taking a deep breath, Steve continued.  “For starters, once I had the thought, I sorta played up the ‘almost family’ thing.  That we’d known each other for ages and were practically brothers, stuff like that. And it’s not like it happened instantly, Dot and I talked back and forth for a few weeks, figured out all the legal stuff.  Spent some time together so I could get to know Winnie, see what it would be like, all that. Pretty sure Dot spent the whole time waiting for me to change my mind, but the minute I saw Winnie there was no chance of that.” His smile sweet, Steve says softly, “She looks so much like you, especially her smile. I was such a goner.”

Bucky nods, eyes steady on Steve while he unconsciously rubs his fingers against his lips.  For a moment it looks like he’s going to speak, and Steve waits to give him the chance, but in the end Bucky just drops his hand again and gestures for Steve to continue.

It took a little over a month, Steve explains, but since Dot hadn’t known Bucky’s last name she’d left the line blank on the birth certificate while she tried to find him.  The lawyer Steve had hired was extremely competent, and between the missing name and the willingness of both Dot and Steve, it was relatively easy to get the adoption sorted out and made official.  “I had a couple other plans in my back pocket, just in case,” Steve says. “One of which was a friend of mine, a doctor, who said he would be willing to help me get a falsified DNA test showing Winnie was really mine so we could put my name on the birth certificate, but that ended up not being necessary.”

Bucky looks at him in surprise, and Steve sighs.  “Like I said, not real proud of everything I did back then.”

“And that was that, you were single dad Steve?” 

“Pretty much,”  Steve leans back against the back of the bench, stretching his legs out.  Finally relaxing now that most of the story was told. “It was impulsive, and crazy, and fueled a lot by how I was grieving you at the time. Anyone in their right mind would think I’d made a terrible decision.  But Bucky?” He turns his head and meets Bucky’s eyes head-on. “I don’t regret a single second of the last five years. It was hard, yeah, and those first few weeks were rough. More than once it was just me and Win sitting on the couch and crying.  But I’m lucky enough I have excellent friends helping me, and a graphic design job I could do from home. And I love Winnie with all my heart.”

Bucky stares at Steve, searching his expression with wide eyes for nearly a minute, barely breathing.  When he finally inhales sharply, suddenly, it sounds almost like a sob. He turns away from Steve, pressing his hand against his eyes where Steve thinks he saw the telltale dampness of tears. 

“Fucking Christ, Steve,” Bucky says on ragged breaths.  “What the fuck, I don’t know what to do with that. Fucking  _ feelings _ .  What am I supposed to say to that?”

Steve replies softly, “You don’t gotta say anything, Buck.”  He fell silent, giving Bucky time to breathe and think. 

 

***

 

_ How are you even real? _ Bucky thinks to himself, hand over his eyes while he tries to keep himself together.  Steve’s story sounded fucking insane, like a bad movie or something, but the fact that it’s all so ridiculous means that Bucky is pretty certain it’s all true. And it did all make sense, in a weird way, for all that Bucky didn’t actually remember any of it -- not knowing Steve, not dating this woman named Dot.

Christ, what kind of guy just adopts a friend’s kid out of the blue like that?   _ A good guy, _ a little voice in the back of Bucky’s head says.   _ A good guy like Steve _ .   

Bucky doesn’t even know how to deal with that.

Steve stays quiet, giving Bucky time to breathe and think.  And the more he considers everything Steve just told him, Bucky starts to realize that while he was a little overwhelmed, and unsure of where things are going to go, he’s grateful.  He doesn’t know just yet what he wants to do about having a kid, but thanks to Steve, he’s going to have the chance to figure it out.

He turns back to face Steve.  “Thank you, Steve. It’s...I’m not sure how this will all play out, but the fact that I have the chance to try...that means so much.”  Steve grins like the sun in response to that, and Bucky can’t look away. Trying to seem like he has his shit together more than he probably does, Bucky asks, “So is there anything else to the last few years with you aside from being Single Dad Steve?”

Steve shrugs.  “Not really, if I’m being honest.  Those first few years were tough, but it all worked out.  The only real rough spot was when a military lawyer showed up two years ago with the paperwork for some sort of life insurance thing.”  Steve looks so sad when he says it, and Bucky tries to image what that would’ve been like, to have moved past mourning a friend and into a regular life only to have a reminder show up on the doorstep. 

Except… Bucky pauses in confusion.  “Life insurance thing?”

“I mean, maybe there’s some official name for it?  But she said I was listed as a beneficiary for this policy, and that since there was no other family there was no one to like, contest it or whatever.  When I asked why she was here now, three years after you’d been declared KIA, she told me that it took a few years to process everything properly before they could contact me.”  Steve looks away as he adds in a low voice, “I had a few bad weeks after that. I guess I’d been hoping it would turn out not to be true, but if they were bringing me official documents, well.  It meant you were really, truly gone.”

No one had mentioned anything like that to him at SHIELD when they debriefed him before sending him back to civilian life.  All Bucky says right now, though, is, “I hope it helped.”

“Honestly, I didn’t even want to look at the money, so I set it up into an account for Winnie’s education.  It was more than enough to cover her for college pretty much anywhere in the world, so that’s one thing no one has to worry about, at least.” 

“This lawyer,” Bucky asks.  “What did she look like?”

Steve looks surprised at the question, but tips his head in thought.  “I hope you don’t want specifics, because it was a long time ago and I wasn’t in a good headspace.  But I remember her being tiny, very pretty. Redhead.” He pauses, and squints a little as though he’s trying to bring his mental image into focus, and finally adds, “Dangerous.  Why do you ask?”

Bucky just makes a considering noise, but doesn’t answer.  He has a suspicion about who that lawyer really was. It’s a discussion for another day, though, after a few pointed questions to a certain redhead, so he just waves it away.

Of course, that means there’s nowhere else to go in this discussion aside from that day in the grocery store.  Bucky wants, just for a moment, to run off like he did the last time, but quashes the urge as strongly as he can.  That wouldn’t be fair to Steve for one thing, not after everything Bucky had just learned. But it wouldn’t be fair to Bucky, either. They both need the answers this conversation would hopefully provide.

Straightening up and facing Steve, Bucky took a measured breath before asking the next question on his mind.  “That day in the store… Why did she come up to me and ask if I was her dad?”

“Aww, Buck, you may not have known about Winnie, but I told her all about you,” Steve says.  “I told her stories about you, and showed her photos, pretty much as soon as she could understand what I was saying.  She’s always known you were her dad, Bucky.”

Somehow Bucky wasn’t expecting that response.  Even with that not-quite-mistaken identity moment in the grocery store, and knowing just how good of a guy Steve was, he’d just figured that Steve took on being Winnie’s dad all the way.  “Oh.”

“Yeah, I wanted her to know you, know who you are, and I never tried to hide that she was adopted.”  Steve smiles, looking a little wistful. “It was easier when she was younger, but for the last year or so she’s been asking more questions.  You, ah, weren’t the first guy she’s run up to because he looked kinda like you do in her photo album. I wasn’t gonna be able to go on much longer without telling her the whole story, or as much of it as I could’ve told a five year old.” 

“What did you tell her?” Bucky asks.  He isn’t sure what he would say if he was in Steve’s place, trying to figure out how to explain to a little girl that the dad she’s been hearing stories about isn’t ever coming home.  

“I kept it simple.  Told her that you were a soldier.  That you weren’t around because you were doing soldier things. I never quite got around to telling her you were dead, though.  For a lot of reasons, like telling myself I would explain when she asked, or when she was older.” Steve pauses, looking down at his feet.  “Selfishly, too, I didn’t like to think about you being gone. But it was coming up, since she was old enough to start asking more questions about why you hadn’t been back, or why she didn’t ever hear from you.”

Stricken, Bucky whispers, “I don’t know how she doesn’t hate me.  For being gone, for never calling…”

“She doesn’t, Buck, I promise you.  She would get sad about it, sometimes, I’m not gonna lie to you about that.  But I always did what I could to explain that you were doing important things for the Army, trying to help people.”  He sighs. “Honestly, I have no idea how I would’ve explained, when it finally came to that point.”

Bucky shakes his head.  “Thank you for that. For making sure she knew who I was.”  He doesn’t even know himself sometimes these days, and the knowledge that his daughter knew who he was even though she’d never met him…

“But you’re here now, Buck, and I’m so happy about that.  I guess I just…don’t really know where we go from here.” Steve kind of waves his hand, clearly at a loss.

Bucky can’t help but laugh a little, this whole situation being so far outside anything he’s ever dealt with before.  He can hear his voice is a bit strained, but also, thank god he’s not alone in feeling confused about all this. “I’m not sure either, Steve.”

They spend some time talking about Winnie, Steve telling Bucky about her personality and sharing stories about things the two of them have done over the years.  Winnie’s likes and dislikes and hobbies, the fact that she likes narwhals instead of unicorns, enjoys drawing, and only eats popcorn when it has that awful fake cheese seasoning on it.  

Eventually they both trail off, and Bucky lets all the details he learned about his daughter’s life tumble around in his thoughts.  He knows he’ll have a whole list of things he’ll want to know about once it all starts to settle, and that the stories Steve told him today are only the tip of a five-year iceberg.

“Anything else you want to know?” Steve asks.

Bucky hesitates, turning his empty coffee cup in his hands. When it comes right down to it, he’s not sure he really wants to know the answer to the question still hovering in the back of his mind.  He’s avoided thinking about it, avoided mentioning it to anyone, but the memory of that photo is still there. And dammit, Steve hasn’t said anything outright, either, so it’s not just Bucky who’s been in avoidance mode...but he can’t deny that some of the stuff Steve’s been saying sounds...not entirely like what friends say about each other.

“There were...some of the photos on your phone…” Bucky begins haltingly.  “There is something I wanna ask, but it doesn’t have to do with Winnie.”

Steve looks very focussed suddenly, intent on Bucky’s next words even though it seems like he’s trying to show a neutral expression. Bucky makes a mental note to challenge Steve to a poker game sometime, since Steve clearly doesn’t have any kind of poker face.  Right now, though, he’s deep enough into this that he might as well ask what he wants to know.

“Before, were we...ever together?” he asks, and he can hear the nerves in his voice but presses on.  “As in dating? Or, y’know…” He waves his hand back and forth between them, hopes that Steve understands it to mean,  _ Did we fuck?, _ without Bucky having to actually throw that one right out there.

And Steve  _ blushes _ , bright pink spreading right across his cheekbones and up to his hairline, so Bucky figures that yeah, Steve picked up on the part Bucky didn’t say out loud.  A blush isn’t really an answer, though, not even with Steve’s lack of a poker face. Bucky tries to look calm while Steve appears to be searching for words, but he can feel the tightness of his own jaw so doesn’t think he’s successful.

When Steve finally speaks, though, all Bucky feels is disappointment; more than he expected, which meant that regardless of what he’d been trying to tell himself, he’d really been hoping that the answer to his question would’ve been yes.

“No, Buck, we weren’t together back then, dating or…otherwise.”  Steve’s voice is low, pressing the words out, and looking pretty miserable about it if Bucky’s reading his expression right.  Except Steve mutters something under his breath that Bucky doesn’t quite catch but which he thinks included the words,  _ what’s a little more baring my soul _ , before taking a deep breath.  “We weren’t together, but it wasn’t for lack of interest on my part.”

The switch from disappointment to something very much  _ not _ disappointed practically leaves Bucky dizzy, because unless he’d started imagining things, Steve just said he’s interested in Bucky; or that he had been, anyway.  Bucky scrambles around for something to say, but Steve keeps going, clearly determined now to get it all said, whatever’s on his mind.

“I hoped, a few times, that maybe you were interested too, but I was never sure enough to do anything about it, and I didn’t want to mess up the friendship we had going.  Then you’d get deployed on a mission again, or you’d already be seeing someone during your leave by the time we’d meet up, or I’d be dating someone.” He sighs, and finally manages to meet Bucky’s eyes.  “I almost said something that last time you were home, but I chickened out. And then you were away, and then you were...gone, and I was just left with words I hadn’t said.”

Well, that was both more and less than Bucky expected to hear, but he isn’t sure he likes the possible implications of his past behaviour.  It makes for one of those times where he really,  _ really _ misses having all his memories. “Steve, that’s...I don’t really know what to say.  I don’t remember any of that, of course, but I still… I’m sorry, if you thought I was leading you on or something.  Back then. I really hope I wouldn’t have done that, but I just don’t know.” 

Steve just smiles sweetly and gently denies Bucky’s words with a shake of his head.  “It wasn’t like that, Buck, and in any case, you’re not responsible for my feelings. If you did know how I felt and just weren’t interested, you never let on, never got weird about it or anything.”  With a groaning laugh, Steve rolls his eyes self-deprecatingly. “And here I am now, spilling it all in front of you.”

Bucky takes a few minutes to process all of that before speaking, trying to get his thoughts in order.  With a sigh, he leans to the side just enough to bump his shoulder against Steve’s. “Thanks for telling me, though.  I may not remember you, but you seem like a fucking amazing person, Steve, and I can’t help but think…” He pauses, frowning a little, expression pained.  “I’m pretty sure I’ve done some stuff that’s just...not great, or good. I’m never sure if it’s better or worse that I don’t remember what those things might be.  But if a guy like you could find something about me to care for like that, then somewhere along the line I must’ve been doing something right.”

Steve doesn’t say anything to that, but he also doesn’t move away, so Bucky stays in place, shoulder pressing warmly against Steve’s.  Bucky feels awkward and a little raw after that last bit of heavy discussion, and judging by the quality of Steve’s silence he’s probably feeling the same.  In a  _ what the fuck just happened what kind of discussion was that what the hell do I say now _ kind of way.  They’re both so obviously avoiding each other’s eyes right now--Bucky is very intently examining the tree across the path with all the crooked branches--and when he tries he can catch Steve from the corner of his eye looking all squinty at....the same crooked tree.

_ What a couple of idiots _ .

It’s enough to break the tension, and Bucky snorts out a laugh, muttering, “Christ, that was fucking embarrassing.”

The awkwardness dissipates as Steve starts laughing, too, gasping out between giggles how that reaction was, “Just...so Bucky,” and Bucky joins in laughing for real and for a solid five minutes the two of them just sit there on the park bench laughing like a couple of dumbasses, in a combination of embarrassment and relief.  

When they finally wind down and Bucky manages to get a couple deep breaths, he sits up straight again and shakes his head.  “Fuck, okay, we gotta talk about something less fucking intense.”

Steve hummed in agreement, reaching over to extend the little bakery bag of pastries that he’d forgotten about.  Bucky pulled out what appeared to be a brownie that smelled a little like coffee--it also smelled fucking delicious--and he raises an eyebrow at Steve.

Steve blushes a bit again, but is also far more relaxed and just shrugs.  “Sorry, I got what used to be your favourite, a mocha espresso brownie. I can eat it instead, if that’s too weird.”  

Bucky’s already got the brownie halfway in his mouth before Steve’s even finished talking, though, and barely manages to mumble past a too-large bite, “Fuck no, this is amazing.  No wonder it was my favourite.” Steve laughs and looks fucking delighted, and Bucky knocks their shoulders again while he finishes eating.

“Good start on the topic change,” Bucky says once the brownie was gone.  “I can’t talk about my work for a lot of reasons, not least of which is the memory loss, so tell me about your job or whatever you do.  You said you’re a graphic design artist and you work from home?”

Steve laughs a bit, but goes along with the blunt change in topic easily enough.  He starts telling Bucky about his graphic design business, what it’s like working from home while raising Winnie, and about how he always wanted to be an artist but graphic and digital design for stuff like websites and magazines actually lets him make a decent living while he still has time for more traditional sketching and painting on the side.

Bucky has a lot of questions--hell, he near enough went straight from a couple aimless years at college right into the service, then special ops with SHIELD, so it’s not like he ever held much in the way of a “real” job--and while they stay away from the more touchy topics, of which there are  _ so many _ , they still end up in the park until the sun starts going down and Steve finally says he ought to head home for dinner with Winnie. 

“You could, ah--” Steve starts as he moves to stand, but Bucky can see the invitation coming and shakes his head, gently cutting Steve off before he can say the words. 

“Not yet, Steve.  I’m not there yet.  But thank you.” He softens the refusal with a smile that he hopes says,  _ but one day I will be _ .  Because now he’s pretty sure that it’s true.   



	6. Six

What follows is several weeks of texting and a few more instances of coffee and talking, with Steve sharing more about Winnie’s life and his own, as well as more about what Steve and Bucky had gotten up to during Bucky’s leaves times.

Frankly, Bucky finds the whole process fucking exhausting-- _ so much talking _ \--but it’s also strangely satisfying as he gets to know Steve in the here and now.  Because yeah, there’s a lot of reminiscing from Steve, and struggling to find any of it familiar and living in his memories somewhere from Bucky, but in amongst it all they’re building some sort of new friendship between the two of them they way they are now.

And the way they are now, five years changed, well.  Bucky doesn’t remember Steve-from-before, but Steve-right-now is about eight different kinds of attractive and Bucky feels a little like he might lose his mind.  Steve’s just so good, and funny, and a sarcastic shit sometimes, and a dedicated dad to Winnie, and then there are all those  _ muscles shoulders arms unf _ ….  He’s just so  _ Steve _ all the time, and apparently that’s what Bucky likes.

Because yeah, now that Bucky isn’t panicking half the time and confused the rest, now that he’s actually had time to sort through his thoughts and feelings about reconnecting with Steve--thank you, Jeannine--Bucky has to admit to himself that he very much likes Steve Rogers.

Which isn’t to say he’s not a little torn, and yeah, still a bit unsure, because he doesn’t really know how much of these feelings are new and all-Bucky, and how much might be influenced by knowing Steve had feelings for him once upon a time.

Or by knowing Steve probably  _ still _ had those feelings, since more than once Bucky caught a certain look in Steve’s eyes, a certain tilt to his smile, that has something inside Bucky going,  _ maybe maybe maybe _ .

He also wonders whether any of his current feelings toward Steve might be some sort of feelings-echo from his missing memories--it happened sometimes, when he goes somewhere he figures he’d been at some point in his past--and he isn’t too sure how he felt about the idea that his interest in Steve might be some kind of emotional hangover.

So they spend more time together, get closer, and Bucky struggles with trying not to unintentionally lead Steve on as he tries to figure out his feelings, while simultaneously wanting more and more sincerely to climb Steve like a tree.  

Climb  _ with feelings _ , but still.

Even with the feelings confusion, things have been going really well--so well, in fact, that Bucky’s completely caught off guard when he comes home about a month after that first coffee and finds Natasha in his apartment waiting for him, stretched out on the couch and idly sipping a mug of tea.

“Nat?  When did you get back to the States?  Wait, shit, did I miss a text that you were coming over? Sorry, I was at the store.”  He closes and locks the door, toeing off his boots while he juggles the grocery bags in his hand--his  _ one hand _ , because Stark still had his prosthetic in the lab.   _ For upgrades, Barnesy, you’re gonna love it _ , apparently.  But it’s still left him down an arm for over a month now, and wondering how he’s gonna explain  _ that _ whole thing to Steve whenever he finally has the arm back.  So far Steve hasn’t asked about Bucky’s arm and whatever accident happened, and Bucky sure as hell doesn’t want to bring it up and muck up their relaxed hang-out time with his trauma stories. But eventually, yeah, sharing that story was gonna have to happen.

“Hello, James.  You look like you’re doing well,” Nat replies, voice smooth with a hint of laughter; her default when she wants to appear unaffected.  Bucky recognizes it, knows it for what it is, and knows it means she was worried about him...

...because Bucky had sent her a wild, panicked text and three missed calls more than a month ago, then completely forgot and didn’t send her anything else.  Fuck.

“Fuck,” he repeats out loud, because it goddamn bears repeating.  “You got my text, and then nothing.”

“I got your text, and then nothing else,  _ for an entire month _ , James.” Nat replies, standing gracefully and crossing the room to poke him--hard, like he deserves for being an idiot--in the middle of his chest.  “What do you say?”

He wants to be glib, but can tell that Nat has been really concerned.  “Sorry, Nat. It’s been a weird few weeks, but I’m okay.” Reaching out, he beckons her into a hug.  “Welcome back, it’s good to see you all in one piece.”

She mutters something rude in Russian, but hugs him back, so Bucky knows he’s forgiven for worrying her; or he will be, once he explains.  He motions her back to the couch and heads into the kitchen to make his own mug of tea before he joins her in the living room.

“How was the mission?” Bucky asks, but Natasha just levels a flat look at him, green eyes sharp.

“The mission was fine, but that’s not what we’re discussing here.  You’re about to tell me what’s been going on that made you try to call and text when you knew I was on a mission, because I know you wouldn’t have bothered if it wasn’t important.”  She puts her mug down and crosses her arms. “Details, Barnes. Now.”

“I really am fine, I promise.  But, yeah, there’s been a lot going on and to be perfectly honest, I sent that text in the middle of a freak-out and kind of forgot I did it.”  Bucky takes a fortifying swallow of his tea, and spares a moment to wish it had whiskey in it. “The situation I mentioned. ‘Resolved itself’ isn’t quite right, but I’m not panicking about it anymore.”  Because having spent so much time with Steve the last few weeks, and finally having had time to process, a lot of his concerns had been put to rest.

So, with a deep breath and more tea, Bucky starts talking.  He explains the whole thing about meeting Winnie and Steve in the grocery store, running away from the coffeeshop, then the following meetings with Steve where he heard about his past and his daughter.  Nat laughs at him a bit, and more than once, as is her way, and she looks briefly, genuinely surprised when he says Winnie is his previously-unknown daughter. But she’s sympathetic, too, and by the time Bucky winds down she’s leaning against his side for comfort.

She hums thoughtfully once he’s finished, and finally asks, “Have you met her yet?”

“No, not yet,” Bucky replies quietly.  “I might not be freaking out so much anymore, but I still haven’t quite been ready to take that step.”

“What’s stopping you?”

Bucky makes a face.  “You sound like my therapist.”  Nat just gives him a look that clearly says,  _ keep talking _ , so he explains the core of his hesitation in meeting Winnie.  “I’m afraid she’ll be mad that I wasn’t around, or that she won’t like me.  Be afraid of me when she sees the arm. Pick one.”

“James, I won’t lie and say those are impossible outcomes, but they’re a lot less likely than you think,” Nat says, leaning her head against his shoulder.  “And if you never meet her, then you’ll never know, and I think that would bother you more.”

“I guess you’ve got a point.”  Even if he doesn’t want to admit it, he knows she’s right.

“Kids can be a lot more forgiving than you expect, James.  And you’re a good guy. She’ll see that.”

Sighing, Bucky tips his head to rest against Nat’s.  “Thanks.”

“So was that the whole situation?” Nat asks, and Bucky shakes his head. 

“That was the main part of it, yeah, and it’s what had me panic-texting you.  But this whole thing has given me a bunch of other questions,” Bucky says as he sits up straight against the back of the couch.  Natasha movs back and turns to face him, pulling her feet up onto the cushion. She motions for him to continue.

“I’m just not sure what to think about all this, Nat.  SHIELD sent me back to New York after my discharge because it was my last known location on file before I joined our Ops team, but it’s not like I really remember living here past college.  The years I lived here or came back on leave are part of what’s gone, so I’m kind of wondering… Why did SHIELD bother? They could’ve dropped me anywhere, hell, they could’ve kept me in D.C. and it would’ve been more or less the same.”

Nat shrugs, making a vague gesture with one hand. “New York’s a big city.  Hiding in plain sight and all that.”

Scoffing, Bucky shakes his head.  “Why would they bother, there’s no one left who knew that the operative with the codename Winter Soldier is actually James Barnes, except you and Fury.  And you’re right that New York is huge, so why Brooklyn specifically? A place where I’d run into someone from before? What are the chances?”

“Hmm,” Nat hums, affecting a thoughtful expression and tapping one finger against her cheek.  “What  _ are _ the chances?”

Bucky looks at her sharply, the tone of her voice catching his attention.  It’s the tone she uses when she knows something he doesn’t, and is hinting that she’ll share--if he asks nicely.

“Nat?” He can’t quite manage nice, and he hears the suspicion in his voice, because he’s sure now that Nat has the answers to his questions.  “What did you do?”

Her smile curls up at the corner of her lips, ever so slightly, and she gazes at him like a cat, blinking slow.  Even knowing she’s doing it on purpose to annoy him doesn’t make it any less irritating. He rolls his eyes. “ _ Nat _ , come on.”

“I didn’t do all that much, James.  Just made a few...inspired suggestions to Fury when we were arranging your discharge and relocation.”

“So you’re the one who picked Brooklyn?  Why? It’s not like you knew where I lived before, either, but you managed to dump me practically in the same neighbourhood as I apparently used to live.”

“I did in fact  _ dump you _ , as you so nicely put it, in the exact neighbourhood where one Steven Grant Rogers lives,” Nat smirks.

That gives Bucky pause.  “You knew about Steve? How?  He wasn’t in any of my files.”

“No, he wasn’t, and no one else at SHIELD knows about him but me.”  Nat drops the sardonic tone for something more reassuring. “I’m the only one who had all the pieces.  Such as the fact that your Steve is apparently very...let’s go with  _ noisy _ , when he’s arguing with military office personnel.”

Bucky lowers his face into his palm.  “Oh, no.”

“Oh,  _ yes _ ,” Nat laughs, and she’s clearly getting too much amusement out of this situation. “Steve made such a stink looking for you--or rather, looking for someone named ‘Bucky’--that he ended up on about three of Fury’s ‘keep an eye on them until we figure out what the fuck they want’ lists.”

Groaning, Bucky mutters, “Yeah, he said he figured he was on a watch list somewhere after all that.”

“Mmm.  Well, that alone wasn’t enough to give away his connection to you, since he was looking for someone by the name of Bucky, and you were very careful to keep that nickname away from your files--and from me, apparently.”  She gives him an disappointed look, but he knows it’s mostly for show; she understands keeping their work away from the rest of life just as well as he does. “But you mentioned him to me, just once. When you were in recovery, after our last mission.”

“When I lost my arm,” Bucky broke in. And it’s not something he likes to think about, or talk about, but it’s different with Nat because she was there.  She  _ knows _ .  They’d been partners at SHIELD for a few years at that point, and when Fury began to suspect the organization had been infiltrated by the domestic terrorist group known as Hydra, she was his handler when he went undercover to root them out.  He’d gotten in on his skills as a sniper and over the year or so that he’d spent deep in the muck he’d done a lot of things he wasn’t proud of, and telling himself it was necessary for the greater good...well, that only went so far to salve a man’s conscience.

And Hydra sure lived up to their image, ruthless and violent.  Bucky thought he’d done well enough that they wouldn’t see past his cover, but it turned out there were enough hidden moles within SHIELD that one of them got wind of the mission and reported it to their superiors. Which meant, of course, that the next time Bucky walked into the room he faced twenty armed men let by Brock fucking Rumlow, former SHIELD Strike Team leader and current asshole.

What followed, from what he’s been told, was months of torture and attempts to get him to betray Fury and SHIELD--beatings, deprivation, and even electric shock directly to his brain which, according to his doctors, is likely responsible for most of the memory loss. All the while, Natasha scrambled to get enough information and people into place to take the place down. 

What no one had realized, of course, was that the place was rigged to blow.  According to Nat, he’d been located--barely coherent, electricity burns on his skull, but alive--and in the middle of being carried out of the hole he’d been in when someone hit the trigger, leaving Bucky buried under half the building.  By the time they dug him out two days later, his arm was crushed and badly infected, and Bucky was in the next nearest thing to a coma.

Nat nods.  “When you lost your arm,” is all she says, and he can see the shadow of past worry cross her face; she knows where his thoughts have gone.  “You were in bad shape, and on a lot of painkillers while we waited for extraction from the safehouse. You were mumbling about a bunch of stuff, most of it nonsense or so slurred I couldn’t make it out, but at one point you talked about Steve and Brooklyn.”

“You never mentioned that,” he says, and no matter how hard he tries, he’s never been able to remember anything about the end of the mission and those early days of his recovery, between the drugs and his injuries.

“I didn’t.  You were so out of it, so confused, and I could tell it was something you’d deliberately kept private and separate from your work life, otherwise I’d have heard about it before, and I...I know the value of private things.  I didn’t want to tell you when you were still surrounded by doctors and monitoring equipment. I figured I’d say something when you were better, more yourself--”

“Except that didn’t really happen, did it,” Bucky sighed, feeling tired.  

“No, it didn’t.  There you were, finally conscious and able to hold a conversation, and we find out you didn’t remember anything from the last five years.”  Nat reaches out to wrap her fingers around Bucky’s hand, squeezing tight. “I swear I planned to tell you when you recovered your memories, except you didn’t.  So I just...left it alone.”

Bucky squeezed her fingers gently right back.  “It’s okay, Nat, I get it.” And he does, he definitely does; given the same situation, he doesn’t doubt he would’ve done the same.

With a nod, she slips back into her default amused expression, though Bucky’s pretty sure her amusement is genuine as she says, “Then, of course, Steve started being what I can only assume was  _ very Steve, _ and harassed every recruitment office and military base from here to Washington.”

He snorts a helpless laugh, because it really was ‘very Steve.’ 

“Anyway,” Nat continues.  “I was the one with both pieces of the puzzle.  First I hear the name Steve from you under the influence of drugs and injury, then a few months later some guy named Steve starts metaphorically trying to kick the doors in?  It was obviously the same guy.”

“Well, you’ve always been the smart one,” Bucky says.  Then he realizes.... “You’re the one who got him a copy of my file.”

Natasha nods.  “Steve stopped showing up in person to the offices for a month or so, and then I got a message from an old friend asking the same questions, but much more quietly. You were still in a coma and your recovery seemed...unlikely.  I figured this Steve deserved some sort of closure, at the very least, so I passed along what I could without getting caught or revealing anything classified.”

“I don’t know if ‘thank you’ is the right thing to say here, but thanks,” Bucky says.  “It wasn’t ideal, and Steve took it pretty hard, but it was the best option at the time.”  His breath hitches a little as he adds, “There was no guarantee I would’ve come back from all that.”

“But you did,” Natasha says softly.  “You survived, and healed, and I didn’t want to confuse you, so I kept what I knew about you and Steve to myself.  By the time you were ready to be discharged back to the world, Fury and the other top dogs were so concerned about security breaches and your memories, you were being monitored all the time.  But I knew about Steve, and Brooklyn.”

“And so you set me up for civilian life in a neighbourhood hardly a handful of blocks away from the only person with a connection to my old life and memories,” Bucky finishes for her, and she makes a sound of agreement, looking quietly pleased with herself.

“I mean, I did my homework first.  Investigated the hell out of him to make sure he wasn’t a spy or secretly a criminal or whatever,” Nat says.  “All I found was a moderately successful graphic designer, no criminal record aside from dropped charges related to a bar fight when he was twenty-two, no obvious enemies, and a daughter.  No red flags, nothing to indicate he was anything other than what he appeared to be. But yes, I put you close enough to the only person I knew of who was probably your friend in civilian life, and hoped for the best.” 

Hearing that, Bucky has to take a moment to remind himself how much he trusts Nat,  _ he does _ , and has trusted her with his life a dozen times over their partnership.  But if she investigated Steve, and knew Steve had a daughter… He scrapes the words out of a tight throat.  “Did you know about her?”

“No, James, I didn’t know,” Natasha rushes to reassure him, and Bucky can only feel relief because he can tell she’s letting him see the sincerity in her expression.  “I knew Steve had a kid, yes, but all the records have Steve’s name on them. Nothing with yours. All the paperwork around the adoption just said the woman Delores Pruitt was relinquishing her parental rights to Steve, but no details about why and nothing indicating that Steve wasn’t her biological father.  For all intents and purposes, which I now know was intentional, it looked like Steve knocked some girl up and took responsibility for the kid. Honestly, I’m a bit annoyed at myself for missing the possibility of the connection to you.” Her smile tilts with self-deprecation, before her expression sobers. “I promise, if I’d known she was your daughter, I would have made sure you got that information, James.”

Breathing out sharply, Bucky nods.  “Okay. Thanks.” He doesn’t say,  _ Thanks for not keeping my daughter a secret _ or  _ Thanks for bringing me home to Brooklyn _ , but he can tell by the way she leans into his arm and gives him a hug that she knows what he means.

When they separate and lean back again, Bucky asks, “How could you be sure I’d run into Steve?”

Laughter in her voice, Nat waves airily.  “Oh, I was prepared to intervene if necessary.  But you managed it all on your own. I’m so proud.”  Bucky rolls his eyes at her teasing.

“I guess I’m just wondering…  Why’d you do it? Set me up in Brooklyn right next to Steve?  Why pretend to be a lawyer--yeah, I know that was you--and give him a beneficiary payment that we both know didn’t exist, much less have his name on it.”  Because Bucky is pretty damn sure that since he didn’t have any family left, he hadn’t ever filled out the paperwork for something like that.

Nat pauses, regarding him thoughtfully, then asks, “Do you really want to know?”

Which makes Bucky a little cautious, not sure what Nat’s going to tell him, but he nods anyway.

“It’s true you only ever mentioned Steve once, and you were basically out of your mind, but James?”  She reached over to lay her hand gently on his forearm, giving it a little squeeze. “The way you spoke about him, the way you said his name?  I didn’t have to know all the details to be able to tell he was something special.  _ Someone _ special, to you.”

Bucky feels himself blush a little, because after the last few weeks of getting to know Steve, he’s increasingly sure that yeah, his former self must have thought Steve was special as all hell, because he’s pretty fucking fantastic right now.  And given all the current-Bucky feelings he’s been having, well. No surprises there.

“Yeah, he already said he, uh, was interested, before.  But that we weren’t together...that way, and he said I never seemed to reciprocate, which...I don’t know.  Clearly I was sleeping with someone else at least once, given Winnie.” 

He hesitates, trying to decide whether to keep going, but who else does he have to discuss this with except Jeannine?  “There’s this one picture of me, on his phone. The expression on my face…” Meeting Natasha’s eyes, he gives her a small smile. “Something special doesn’t even cover it.”

Nat smiles at him--her real smile, warm and caring.  “So what are you going to do, James?”

Bucky laughs tiredly.  He loves Nat like a sister, but holy hell all this talking about his past and his feelings is exhausting.  But that’s really what it all comes down to, isn’t it? Nowhere to go but forward, now, and the only one who can decide on the path is Bucky himself.  

“I guess I’m going to go meet my daughter.  I’m going to talk to Steve, and then… Well, I guess we’ll see.” 


	7. Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keep an eye out for the lovely art by [mrs-dr-strange](https://mrs-dr-strange.tumblr.com) near the end of the chapter!

“Hey, Nat, so I’m at the park and--” Bucky adjusts his phone against his ear as he walks through the entrance to Prospect Park and merges into the stream of pedestrians and joggers on the main path.

Natasha cuts him off.  “If you’re at the park, why are you on the phone with _me_?”

“Uh--”  He’d called Nat out of nerves but clearly hadn’t thought it through.

“Weren’t you meeting Steve at three?”

“Yes?”  Yeah, he should’ve known she was gonna give him shit, and sure enough…

“So you’re at the park, what, more than an hour early? James--”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Bucky groans.  He steps off the path to lean against a big oak tree, tipping his head back to thump it against the rough bark. “I couldn’t sit around my apartment any longer waiting.  Felt like I was gonna climb the walls. Or start punching shit.” The nerves had woken him up far too early for a Saturday--Bucky values his sleeping in, goddammit--and driven him out to the park far earlier than he needed to be here.  He feels like a broken idiot, letting his nervousness get the better of him yet again, but at least it was a nice day. Sunny but cool enough he could wear his favourite dark red sweatshirt--the one Nat said made him look cuddly--and after walking around the park for an hour he at least felt as though he’d worked off some of his nervous energy.

There’s sympathy in Nat’s voice when she speaks now.  “James, you don’t have to be so nervous. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“I know…” Bucky replies, but if he can hear the uncertainty in his own voice, then Nat can hear it for sure.  “I just…”

“She’s not going to hate you,” Nat states.  “You’re not really a hate-able guy, so you really don’t have to worry about that.”

Bucky manages a rough laugh.  “Pretty sure Rumow hated me.”

“Rumlow doesn’t count,” Nat snorts.  “He was a jackass and deserved everything that happened to him.”

And that...was true.  Bucky nods to himself, and then adds, “Agreed.”

“So we’ve established that no one’s going to hate on you today, correct?”

“Yes, Natasha,” Bucky replies in an exaggerated voice.

“Good.  So get the hell off the phone,” she orders, and hangs up.  Bucky just laughs. Typical.

Shoving his phone back into his pocket, he looks around.  He still has an hour to wait. Well, there was probably a coffee place somewhere.

 

***

 

This time, Bucky’s the one already waiting at the park bench when Steve shows up.  

He has a couple fresh coffees resting on the bench next to him, and an eye on Steve coming up the path looking so, so good in a leather jacket and jeans.  Steve’s alone, and before he has a chance to panic Bucky reminds himself it’s what they agreed on for today--that Steve would come alone first, in case Bucky had a bad night or wanted to change his mind.   _It’s not because Winnie doesn’t want to come, it’s because we both agreed this was the best way to do it._

The fact that it pisses him off that they’d had to factor in the possibility to begin with was just something he had to deal with.  He’d met up with Steve last week after a bad night because he’d been determined to go out, but he’d been so tired and frustrated he’s sure neither of them had a good time.  It’s certainly not the mindset Bucky wants to be in when he meets Winnie properly for the first time, so they’d settled on this plan.

Bucky lifts his hand to wave as Steve approaches, and only realizes that he’d used his finally-got-it-back-from-Stark left hand when Steve’s expression registers surprise at the shiny silver metal catching and reflecting the sunlight.  Feeling a bit sheepish--he’d honestly forgotten Steve hasn’t seen his arm yet--Bucky gives his fingers an extra little wiggle.

“You have a metal arm,” Steve says as he comes to a stop next to Bucky.  Almost immediately his eyes go wide and he turns red with embarrassment. “Fuck!  Sorry! That’s so rude, oh my god--”

“Steve, it’s fine,” Bucky cuts him off with another wave of his left hand. “I’ve been so glad to have it back this week, finally, that it honestly slipped my mind that you hadn’t seen it.”  Steve still hesitates, and Bucky rolls his eyes and laughs. “Fuck’s sake, sit down, Rogers.”

Slumping onto the bench, Steve covers his face with both hands.  “Sorry, Buck. I’ve been trying not to ask--”

“I know,” Bucky interrupts gently.  “And I appreciate it, Steve, I really do.  But it’s okay. I’m mostly good with the arm situation these days, I’m not gonna get mad at you or some shit.”

“You don’t gotta tell me anything,” Steve insists.

Shaking his head, Bucky gives Steve a look.  “I know you’ve got questions, Steve. I’m saying it’s okay for you to ask.”

Steve’s quiet, but clearly trying to decide what he wants to ask, so Bucky just passes over the second coffee and picks up his own to take a drink.  Steve does the same, until he finally lowers his coffee cup and speaks. “You didn’t have a prosthetic when I met you, and you said you just got it back?”

Bucky feels some tension abate that he hadn’t realized he was holding while waiting to hear whatever question Steve would ask, and he has to admit that while this wasn’t where he thought Steve would start, it was definitely easier to answer.  It also makes him realize he isn’t quite ready to actually tell Steve the details of how he lost the arm, no matter how broad his permission had just been.

He lifts the metal hand to where Steve can see it.  “I got this a few months after I was discharged, it goes right up to my shoulder.  It’s experimental, though, wired directly into my nerves. Moves almost like a real arm, and about three times as strong. But it’s basically a prototype, so I have to go in to the lab every week or two for check-ups and maintenance. I haven’t had it for awhile because the guys at the lab said they had to keep it for upgrades and shit.”  They’d also polished the plates, Bucky’s pretty sure, because the thing is so shiny it’s almost blinding.

“I guess that makes sense?” Steve says, but he sounds unsure.

“I didn’t mention it earlier because it didn’t really come up in conversation--you were really dedicated to not asking me about the arm--and I don’t like not having it attached.  And honestly, it’s not something I much like talking about, so I usually just don’t.” Bucky cast an apologetic look at Steve. “And I know I just said you could ask questions…”

Steve shakes his head.  “It’s fine, Bucky. You don’t gotta talk about it unless you want to.”

“Another time, though, yeah?” Bucky adds, and Steve smiles.

Steve holds out his hand, hovering close to Bucky’s metal hand but not touching.  He glances up, a little shyly. “Can I see?” At Bucky’s nod, Steve carefully presses his fingers to the cool metal, gently tugging Bucky’s hand closer so he can study it.  He presses his fingers against the small interlocked plates that make up the fingers and palm, gently bending and flexing Bucky’s fingers and wrist. “It moves so naturally. And it’s gorgeous.”  Steve’s cheeks go pink in a way that seems like he hadn’t meant to say that last part.

And Bucky, well.  He tries to tell himself the warm shiver up his spine is just feedback from the arm where Steve’s holding it, but he knows in his heart that’s a lie.  

“Well, that’s Stark’s tech for you,” Bucky says, trying to get his thoughts back on track instead of distracted by the sound of Steve’s voice saying ‘gorgeous’.  “Fantastically advanced, flashy as all hell.”

Steve runs his fingers across the smooth surface of Bucky’s palm again, humming in agreement.  Except then he pauses, blinks hard, and straightens to look at Bucky in surprise. “Stark? As in Tony Stark?”

“Yeah, Tony Stark.  My security clearance was high enough, not counting the memory issue shit, that I got recommended for his experimental prosthetics project.  Right now, this arm is the only one like it in the world.”

Steve has a funny look on his face now, like he’s dumbstruck over this, and while Bucky supposes some people might think it’s cool that he knows “billionaire Tony Stark,” mostly Bucky finds the guy alternately annoying and a genius--and often both at the same time.  But Steve isn’t interested in that, apparently.

“Yeah, I know.  Tony’s a friend of mine, has been for years now.  He’s mentioned the project to me, multiple times.”  Steve sighs and twists his lips into a half smile, like he isn’t sure whether to be happy or sad.  Bucky squeezes his metal fingers gently around Steve’s, and can’t help his own smile when Steve squeezes back.  On a quiet breath, Steve goes on, “It just feels like we’ve been circling around each other’s lives, and god, it’s like I don’t know how to feel about it because I keep thinking, what if I hadn’t found you that day in the grocery store, would we have just kept...missing each other?  By a few days, or a few blocks away? Except now, even if we hadn’t met those weeks ago, to know that I might’ve just run into you one day at Tony’s lab?” Steve’s eyes look a little damp, and Bucky presses a little bit tighter against Steve’s hand.

“Feels a little bit like fate,” Bucky says.  He thinks about the process that led to him getting added to Stark’s program, all those months ago, and realizes--  “Of fucking course you know Stark,” he groans out around a laugh. “Guess I should say it ain’t as much of a coincidence as you think it is.  My friend Nat’s the one who made the arrangements for me to come back to Brooklyn, and she’d found out about you, so she planted me in the neighbourhood hoping we’d reconnect.  She’s the one who put me in touch with Stark’s program, too.”

And wasn’t Nat just a sneaky little shit sometimes, Bucky thinks with a mental roll of his eyes.  She wasn’t ever going to let him forget all this stuff she did for him--as though he ever could. But he knows he’ll never be able to repay her for bringing him home.

“Wow,” Steve says.  “Well, then I hope I get to meet her some day, so I can say thanks.”

Bucky has to laugh at that, chuckling while he says,.  “Oh, you’ve already met. She was the lawyer who showed up two years ago.  I recognized her from your description.”

“I thought your friend was in the service with you? Not a lawyer.”  Steve just looks confused now, and it only made Bucky laugh harder because this whole situation is fucking ridiculous.  “So she was, what? Checking up on me?”

“Something like that.  She’s not really a lawyer, either; she’s pretty much whoever she wants to be when she wants to be.  The papers and shit she brought you are genuine, though, so don’t worry about that,” Bucky says to offer reassurance before Steve can get concerned.  “But it suited her to have a chance to see you, so ‘lawyer Natasha’ it was.”

Steve pauses.  “So if she knew who I was…  Did you tell her about me?”

Bucky shakes his head slowly.  “No, or at least, not on purpose.  I didn’t like to bring my non-work life into the line of fire, y’know?  But when I got hurt on that last mission, I guess I talked about you when I was all messed up on painkillers.  I don’t remember doing it, or what I said, but I guess it was enough for Nat to figure out...well, that you were important.”

“I’m glad, then.” Steve says.  “I mean, knowing your friend pretended to be a lawyer to spy on me is a little unsettling and I think we’ll have to revisit that discussion later.  But if she hadn’t found out, hadn’t set you up to come back home to Brooklyn, we might not have found each other again.”

“She liked you,” Bucky says after a pause.  “She wouldn’t have brought me back here if she didn’t.”

Steve smiles, and goes quiet for a few minutes before straightening in his seat and giving Bucky’s hand another squeeze.  He takes a deep breath and then meets Bucky’s eyes. “What about you?”

For a moment Bucky wants to play dumb, to pretend that he doesn’t know what Steve’s asking, even though he knows they would’ve ended up at this point eventually.  But he doesn’t, not just because Steve deserves better, but because Bucky knows they both do. They both deserve to know where the other stands, and whether they could maybe make something out of this thing between them.  And because when he said ‘ _she liked you_ ’ referring to Nat, he couldn’t help but hear an echo of his own feelings for Steve in the words.

So Bucky takes a deep breath and makes the leap.  “I like you, Steve. More than I think I should for how long I’ve known you...or how long this version of me has known you.  But...yeah.” Steve’s starting to grin a little, and goddamn it looks good on him but also makes Bucky aware of just how much his own face has flushed as he speaks.   _Fucking feelings_ , even the good ones were fucking embarrassing.  

So of course Bucky keeps talking, trying to stem his sudden embarrassment but pretty much only making it worse.  “And it’s not just because of everything you did for Winnie, or that you were the only one who tried to find me after I went missing. It’s because you remember my favourite coffee, because your art is beautiful, because you can make me laugh even when I’m having a bad day. Because I feel more like I’m home when I’m with you than I have since getting discharged.”

“Bucky, I--” Steve starts, and Bucky glances over to see Steve’s eyes looked even bluer than usual because they were bright with the beginning of tears, and fuck, Bucky is _not_ ready to deal with a crying Steve Rogers.  He flails a little and reaches out, no idea what he plans on doing, and sort of just...gently smooshes his flesh hand against Steve’s face to cover his eyes, and buries his own face in his metal palm.

“Do _not_ start with that, Steve, or I’m gonna start, and we are neither of us gonna sit here crying on a park bench in the middle of the afternoon,” Bucky threatens, but his voice wavers in the middle and it’s not like they both don’t know he doesn’t really mean it, anyway.  It gets Steve to snort out a little laugh, though, and is enough to pull them both back from tears, so good enough.

Steve’s hand gently wraps around Bucky’s elbow, sliding up his forearm until he closes his hand around Bucky’s and draws it away from his face to reveal those too-blue eyes again, along with a crooked grin.  “I like you, too, Bucky Barnes. I liked you five years ago, and I fell for you all over again when I found you now.” Steve holds Bucky’s hand close, resting their joined hands against his chest, and Bucky can feel the warmth of his body and, faintly, Steve’s heartbeat through layers of clothing.

That mention of five years ago, though… He doesn’t want Steve to get the wrong idea. “Steve, I…  I don’t remember everything about how we used to be,” Bucky starts, gaze steady on Steve. “I don’t know if this is _how_ we use to be, so I need to know that that’s okay.  Because I want to kiss you, Steve Rogers, if that’s something you want, too.”

Steve’s smile is gentle but so, so bright, like it’s lighting him up from the inside.  “It’s more than okay, Buck. I’ve wanted to kiss you pretty much since the day I met you.”

“I don’t know if I wanted this before, but I know I want it now,” Bucky says softly, even as he leans toward Steve, his eyes flicking between Steve’s eyes and his lips.  “I just...I need to know if that’s okay.”

“It’s okay,” Steve replies, voice just as soft.  He lets go of Bucky’s hand, but reaches up to stroke the back of his fingers along Bucky’s jaw until they slide into his hair, palm cradling the back of his head.  “Because, Bucky? You were worth waiting for.”

“You fucking sap,” Bucky laughs helplessly, happy, and tightens both hands in the material of Steve’s jacket to pull him close, pressing their lips together in a kiss.  And yeah, maybe he can’t remember most of the last five years, but it’s the best kiss of his life.

 

 

 

Bucky’s not sure how long they sit there, breathing each other in and trading warm kisses, but eventually one of them pulls back enough that he can look up into Steve’s eyes.  “Hey there, soldier.”

Steve chuckles.  “Shouldn’t I be saying that to you?”

“Ain’t really a soldier anymore, so,” Bucky shrugs.   _Oh, that got Steve all sad again_ , and Bucky tries to think of something else to say but doesn’t get the chance before Steve’s reaching out and pulling Bucky into a tight hug, those big arms wrapped warm around him and _wow, oh this is what you really wanted, Barnes_.  Kissing Steve was great, of course it was, but this goddamn hug felt like everything.  Makes him realize how careful Steve’s been since they reunited, cautious and trying not to startle Bucky or get too close, like he thinks Bucky might run away again, which...is fair.  But this feels more like the version of them Bucky saw in those photos, where they always seemed to be touching or leaning on each other. It feels--

“I’m so glad you’re home, Bucky,” Steve sighs into his shoulder, and yeah, Bucky thinks as he wraps his arms around Steve’s waist and squeezes back, this feels like home.

“After my parents and Becca died,” Bucky starts, leaning a little harder against Steve. “There was a long time where I didn’t think I’d have a family again, or a home again.  Being in the service didn’t help, especially with the type of missions I was involved in. There was always a real high chance I wouldn’t make it home.” Steve makes a sad hum, and Bucky smoothes his hand down Steve’s back.  “Trying to find something real with someone just never seemed to make it very high on my list, and then I got hurt, and I was fucking sure that that was it for me, I was done and gone and it didn’t matter anymore because I was gonna be dead.”  

Bucky loosens his hold on Steve and leans back until they can see each other properly.  “But now I have that chance again, Steve, and that means the world to me. So I wanna get to know you again, and take you out on dates, and see what we might be able to find in each other.”

“Yeah, Buck, yeah.  That sounds real good,” Steve replies, and his smile is so bright it was practically blinding, but Bucky’s pretty sure his own face is doing something about the same because he’s so fucking happy.  “I can’t wait.”

“But first, right now,” Bucky says, because goddammit he’s going to keep being brave today and while laying out his feelings for Steve was a big fucking deal, it isn’t really the reason he was out here today. “I’d like to meet my daughter.”

Steve grinns, wide and delighted, and leanes close to press another quick kiss to Bucky’s mouth.  “Let me call Peggy.”

 

***

 

It’s only about twenty minutes, but Bucky feels simultaneously like it takes a year and no time at all before he catches sight of Peggy walking up the path with Winnie skipping along beside her.  His little girl--and shit, he’s struck all over again by the thought that _he has a daughter_ \--is smiling and chattering up at Peggy excitedly.  

When Peggy notices them she waves, then leans down to point them out to Winnie.  Letting go of Winnie’s hand as the girl takes off running toward Steve and Bucky, Peggy makes a _Call me later_ gesture with one hand, and turns to head back the way she came.  Bucky barely registers that, though, because his whole attention is directed at Winnie.

She runs up to Steve and jumps into a big hug, chattering about everything she’d been up to at “Auntie Peggy’s” that day, and how she’s excited to come out to the park.  She keeps darting little glances toward Bucky, though, even as she leans against Steve. Bucky doesn’t catch many of her words, just the sound of her voice--happy and energetic--because being two feet away from Winnie knowing now that she’s his daughter is just...so much.

Then Winnie turns that glowing smile at Bucky, saying, “Hi again!” and he feels like his heart is gonna melt.  

He manages to stutter out some sort of reply, overwhelmed with the reality of his daughter--but it’s a good kind of overwhelmed.  The kind that tells you that something is important, and precious.

Steve runs his hand over Winnie’s hair to catch her attention, and she turns to face him.  He tugs gently on one of her pigtails. “Winn, I know you’ve been curious the last few weeks, after the day in the grocery store.  I figure you probably had a lot of questions, even though you didn’t ask them.”

Winnie frowns a little, leaning against Steve’s knee.”You seemed sad.  I didn’t want to ask you questions and make you sadder.”

“I know, sweetheart, and I’m sorry you felt like you shouldn’t ask.  You can always ask me questions, even if they might make me sad. But this isn’t actually a sad thing, today.”

Winnie’s eyes cut over to Bucky again, and this time she starts to look a little shy.

And Bucky just melts even further, if that’s  even possible, because suddenly it’s all so real.  He has a daughter, and now he’ll have the opportunity to get to know her, and watch her grow up.  He shifts to slide off the bench until he’s kneeling at Winnie’s level, and with a smile that he hopes doesn’t look too goofy, holds out his hand.

“Hi, Winnie.  I know we met a few weeks ago, but I didn’t introduce myself properly.  My name is James Buchanan Barnes, and...I’m your dad.”

Winnie’s eyes go wide as Bucky finishes speaking, and she whispers, “ _I knew it!_ ”  She turns excitedly to Steve, exclaiming, “Papa, I was right!”

Steve laughs a little, hugging her close.  “Yeah, sweetheart, you were right. I’m sorry I didn’t explain sooner.”

“It’s okay, Papa,” Winnie replies, hugging Steve back.  She moves away from Steve, and comes over to stand in front of Bucky.  She puts her tiny hand in Bucky’s big one and tries to look solemn, but Bucky can see excitement in her eyes.  “Hello, I am Winnifred Sarah Rogers.”

Bucky feels the sting of tears and has to wipe his face with his sleeve, but he’s smiling, too, can feel it on his face even as a couple tears spill over. He squeezes her hand carefully.

“It’s really nice to finally meet you, Winnie. I’m sorry I was away so long,” Bucky says softly.

Then Bucky finds himself with an armful of Winnie--his daughter!--as she reaches out and wraps her arms around Bucky’s neck in a tight hug.  After a moment’s surprise, Bucky returns the hug carefully, making sure he doesn’t hold on too hard with the metal arm. He can see Steve, still seated on the bench and grinning like an idiot, phone in hand clearly taking photos.

Cuddling close, Winnie whispers, “I’m glad you came home, daddy,” and that’s too much.  Bucky holds his little girl close and cries, eyes squeezed tight against the sting of tears.

It was the best Tuesday of his life.


	8. Epilogue

It’s Thursday, which means therapy, and Bucky sits in the big squishy chair in Jeannine’s office as she asks him how his week has been going.  

And it’s been...one hell of a week, Bucky admits.  He goes over the regular stuff first--that he has his arm back from Stark’s repairs and Stark was as annoying as always; that he actually slept for at least five or six hours each night without any significant nightmares.  Even without anything else, that would’ve made for a damn good week.

When Jeannine asks if there’s anything new or specific he wants to talk about, he pauses to think about what he’s about to share.  He nods and gives Jeannine a quiet smile.

“You know I’ve been getting to know Steve these last few weeks, and that’s been...really good.  Hearing about those parts of my past, and the person I used to be, it’s nice. Helps me feel more at home in Brooklyn when he points out a place we went or something we did.  And the stories he tells me have also let me see how much of myself is still the same, and that’s...reassuring.” He laughs a little, leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees.  “He’s also just a genuinely good guy...God, you don’t even know how good…”

He can hear the tone of his voice, and Jeannine picks up on it too.  She smiles encouragingly. “Do you want to share?”

Nodding, Bucky shifts to pull his phone out of his pocket.  He toys with it, turning it between his hands, and he can tell his expression has gone a little sad.  “You said before that five years is a long time. A lot of room for change. I...you remember I mentioned before that there was some other stuff going on, that I wasn’t ready to talk about it, but...I am now.  Ready, that is.”

Jeannine’s expression is encouraging, but she doesn’t say anything else, just gives him time to think.

Looking down at his phone, Bucky slowly thumbs his screen open and flips to a photo, looking at it for a few moments and feeling tears in his eyes, but they’re happy tears.  He leans forward, and holds the phone out toward Jeannine until she can see the screen.

Bucky smiles as he wipes the moisture from his cheeks. 

“This is Winnie.  My daughter.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of the fic, but quite probably not the end of this little AU! There were a few scenes and things I didn't get to or that didn't fit in the story flow, so I might revisit things with a few little follow up ficlets later.
> 
> Many thanks again to mrs-dr-strange for creating the wonderful art in Chapter 7, it was lovely to work with you! Also, thanks and congrats to the Stucky AU BB mods for running an awesome bang!


End file.
